From the Shoulder, Sixteen Rounds with the Gloves Off (1935)

A Scottish minister's advice to older boys to stop thinking about *that* etc

Author

Publisher

Printing Details

Assumed first edition. Small hardback. Burgundy cloth with gilt titling. 15.5 × 10cm, 140pp [1]

The author was a prominent Church of Scotland minister. He served as a military chaplain with the 51st (Highland) Division in World War I, earning the Military Cross, and later founded the Old Boys' Union. Here he addresses the older boys delivering direct, plain-spoken talks to young men navigating adolescence and early adulthood—don't smoke, do box, stay away from girls (real birds and the bees stuff—sex is covered by looking at the catkin tree: "when the catkin is ripe, the pollen dust is shaken out of the tiny boxes. Some of it is spilt on the ground, but some of it alights on the flower above the bud"—though he a bit more blunt on the next page with "...if a boy is not taking sufficient hard, outdoor exercise, or is eating too much rich food, more semen is produced than his body can use up" BUT "there is no need to get worried about it... take a hint from nature to take more exercise and guzzle less, and above all to keep your mind from thinking about these things".

Condition

Good readable condition, some light wear to the edges and a little movement in the hinges.