My Life.

A presentation copy, inscribed on the front free endpaper 'To my old friend Albert Vickers Esq., with compliments Hiram S. Maxim London April 1915', only the signature in Maxim's hand.

Maxim is most famous for his invention of the first recoil-operated machine gun, The Maxim Gun. He was aided in its development by finance from Albert Vickers, the presentee, who became Chairman of the Maxim Gun Company, the firm soon being absorbed into the Vickers Company, one of the most famous names in British Engineering, and the gun eventually was renamed the Vickers Machine Gun. Maxim, born in America, was extraordinarily inventive, with such diverse inventions as the curling iron, aeroplanes, smokeless gunpowder, and an inhaler to his credit, and anticipated the invention of radar with his interest in the direction-finding abilities of bats. He was told by a fellow American while both were in Europe 'if you want to a pile of money, invent something that will enable these Europeans to cut each others' throats with greater facility', and Belloc wrote of the murderous efficiency of the Maxim Gun

'Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim Gun, and they have not.'

Loosely inserted is a contemporary newspaper clipping from 'The Freethinker' containing a review of this book.