The Jungle is Neutral Inscribed by F Chapman - by F. S. Chapman

The Jungle is Neutral Inscribed by F Chapman
by F. S. Chapman

F. SPENCER CHAPMAN, the book's unflappable author, narrates with typical British aplomb an amazing tale of four years spent as a guerrilla in the jungle, haranguing the Japanese in occupied Malaysia.

Traveling sometimes by bicycle and motorcycle, rarely by truck, and mainly in dugouts, on foot, and often on his belly through the jungle muck, Chapman recruits sympathetic Chinese, Malays, Tamils, and Sakai tribesman into an irregular corps of jungle fighters. Their mission: to harass the Japanese in any way possible. In riveting scenes, they blow up bridges, cut communication lines, and affix plasticine to troop-filled trucks idling by the road. They build mines by stuffing bamboo with gelignite. They throw grenades and disappear into the jungle, their faces darkened with carbon, their tommy guns wrapped in tape so as not to reflect the moonlight.

And when he is not battling the Japanese, or escaping from their prisons, he is fighting the jungle's incessant rain, wild tigers, unfriendly tribesmen, leeches, and undergrowth so thick it can take four hours to walk a mile.

It is a war story without rival.

Many of us, between 1939 and 1946, had adventure thrust upon us, Colonel Spencer Chapman is one of the few who seem born to adventure. It would be small matter for wonder if he is already a myth in the Malayan jungle, where for over three years he lived, having no previous experience of the country, harassing the Japanese, training the Chinese guerrillas, undertaking often alone the most arduous marches, twice captured and escaping from his captors, his life a crazy pattern of illness, frustration, and hair-raising peril, ennobled by his will to work for the liberation of the people he had come to love. Such was the vitality of this man tht he was also able to fill diaries written in Eskimo, lest they should reveal secrets to the enemy not only with a soldiers account of his operations but also with a naturalists minute observations of the jungle.
*From the blurb.

From our research it appears that copies of the The Jungle is Neutral signed or inscribed by F. Spencer Chapman are very scarce. The only example of his signature that we could find is contained in a letter that he sent to a childrens home in the UK.


    Hard Cover. Condition: Very Good.
    Green buckram covered boards. Corners bumped. Gilt titling on spine. Shelf wear on edges and spine ends as well as on both front and rear boards. Light stains and marks on the boards. 
    Fly leaves are foxed and marked/discoloured. Fly leaves are printed maps of Malaya.
    Contents are clear, clean and bright. Pages are aged.  In Good to Very Good Condition.
    Pages 267 to 278 have a fold on the outer edges of the pages.
    Dust Jacket in Good condition. Worn and nicked along the edges. Tears in the folds of wraps. Foxed on inside of spine, water damage on spine and front cover. Tear on lower third bottom of front panel which is taped on the inside of the dust jacket.
    Published by Chatto & Windus, London, 1952.
    Binding Condition: Very Good
    Overall Condition: Very Good.
    Size: Octavo (8vo), 202 mm X 140 mm X 22 mm.
    378 pages.


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