02715 (Rolls-Royce Ltd) December 1915 (Preface). 4to. 301 pp. Quarter blue morocco with red spine label with gilt spine title, gilt 'RR' and '1914-1916' on the spine, gilt title on upper board. "Confidential. The property of Rolls-Royce Ltd. Not to be shown to anyone without the authority of the directors" gilt-stamped on the upper board. Edges and corners rubbed, book block and boards quite warped, boards slighty discoloured, endpapers browned, else a very good copy. Leaf paged 199-200 excised (all known copies of this book have this leaf excised), Number 25 in red pencil on the free endpaper. Very rare. "This book is probably the best insight ever printed into the thought processes of a great designer. It is a compilation of the memos sent at the start of WWI by Royce from the south coast of England to the Derby works. They cover the inception, design and development of the Eagle engine..." (S. Skinner in "The Journal of the Aircraft Engine Historical Society, Vol. 7 No. 2 Spring 2008). Only "a few copies were issued... The book has come to be known among the staff as the Rolls-Royce 'Biblie'. Probably no more fascinating document has been produced in the history of engineering" (The Power behind their Wings, p. 21). Aviation historian Sandy Skinner has suggested that no more than 100 copies were produced. (His copy is numbered '18'. We know of another copy in a private collection numbered '89'. Former RR engineer Sir Stanley Hooker records in his autobiography that he owns copy No. '72'. There are reputed to be two copies in the Rolls-Royce archives. However, library holdings are virtually non-existent. COPAC records only one copy in the Science Museum Library of the Imperial College London. $3500.00AUD
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