Complete and unabridged, with 59 full-page plates by Philip Burne-Jones, Frederic Leighton and Frank Bernard Dicksee. The sword from the flint blade to the rapier, traced across every people that made one, by a man who had used most of the weapons he describes. Burton was a swordsman of professional standard and wrote this as the first volume of a longer history he never finished. Its 62 original illustrations have been carefully restored and coloured for this edition.