FIX BAYONETS!

John W. Thomason, Jr. — Captain, U.S. Marine Corps

Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York and London

Published 1926 — Second Printing (April 1926)

Illustrated by the Author

You are looking at a genuine 1926 Charles Scribner’s Sons first-year printing of Fix Bayonets! — widely regarded as the finest American first-person account of World War I, and one of the most important books in the history of the United States Marine Corps.

About the book:

John W. Thomason, Jr. was a Captain in the 5th Marines who fought through Belleau Wood, Château-Thierry, the Argonne Forest, Mont Blanc Ridge, and the march to the Rhine. He was also a gifted artist who sketched his fellow Marines in the field — on scraps of paper, in the margins of orders, wherever he could. Fix Bayonets! is both his written account and his illustrated record of what he saw.

American Heritage called it “the single finest account of Americans in battle.” The Marine Corps has never forgotten it.

The book sold out its entire first printing within one month of publication (March 1926). This copy is the April 1926 second printing — produced the same year, by the same Scribner’s press, within weeks of the first.

What’s inside:

• The full narrative of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines from their arrival in France through Belleau Wood, the Marne, the Argonne, and the occupation of Germany

• Thomason’s own pen-and-ink illustrations throughout — dozens of them, drawn from life in the trenches and fields of France

• The famous Belleau Wood sketchbook page: “Prussians from Von Boehn’s divisions in and around the Bois de Belleau — A page from Captain Thomason’s sketch-book” — soldiers in motion, falling, fighting, dying, captured in ink by the man who was there

• The color frontispiece: “Flare — Front Line, Champagne” — two Marines in a shell hole under a flare burst, rendered in Thomason’s distinctive watercolor style

• The dedication: “To the Men of the First Battalion, Fifth Regiment, United States Marine Corps, 1918”

• Introduction: “The Leathernecks” — Thomason’s portrait of the prewar Marine Corps regular, the man who would become the backbone of the AEF

The binding:

This copy is in the paper-over-boards binding variant — the orange illustrated cover (featuring Thomason’s drawing of Marines marching with a German prisoner) is pasted directly onto the boards, with a separate green cloth spine. This is a known Scribner’s production variant for this title. The illustrated cover is integral to the book.

Condition details:

• Paper-covered boards: Toned to warm tan/brown (age-appropriate for a 99-year-old book); small white spot upper left of front panel; light soiling

• Green cloth spine: Clean and tight; gilt lettering “FIX BAYONETS! — Thomason — Scribners” bright and fully legible

• Color frontispiece: Present and vivid

• Interior pages: Clean with light age toning only; all illustrations present

• No ex-library stamps, no ownership inscriptions (small pencil notation on rear paste-down only — appears to be a price mark)

• No separate dust jacket

Why this book matters:

Thomason went on to become one of the most celebrated military writers and illustrators in American history. His later books — …And a Few Marines, Gone to Texas, Lone Star Preacher — built on the reputation Fix Bayonets! established. But this was the one that started it all. The one that made the Marine Corps proud. The one that American Heritage still cites a century later.

A 1926 Scribner’s copy — the year of first publication — is the real thing. Not a reprint. Not a facsimile. The actual book, from the actual year, by the actual press.