Book Review: A Collectors View - The SMLE by Lance Lysiuk
Forgotten Weapons
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9m 56s
Lance Lysiuk has very recently published a new book on the SMLE, "A Collector's View: The SMLE - Rifle, Short, Magazine, Lee-Enfield 1903 - 1989". A self-published work specifically on the SMLE (and not the Long Lees before nor the No4 series after), this book is written as a collector's guide. As such, it is well organized and provides good information about discrete changes in SMLE variations over the rifle's nearly 100-year service life. Markings, production quantities, serial numbers, and that sort of information are well covered (although not in tabular form, really). It also covers bayonets and scabbards, as well as brief sections on other accessories like wire cutters and grenade launchers. What is explicitly does not cover are the many .22 rimfire variations of the SMLE.
What I like about Lysiuk's book is that it is much more usable as a reference than Skennerton's "Lee Enfield Rifle". For a collector who is specifically looking for a guide to understand the different SMLE patterns and how to identify them, this is definitely a book I would recommend. That said, there are several shortcomings to it. The photography is decent but could be much better (this is in part due to the book being a covid project, and many photographs were taken from the Internet). It also could have used an editor, as there are plenty of awkward sentences, typos, layout overlaps. That doesn't really interfere with the information being presented, though.
The book is priced at $80 plus shipping, which is rather expensive. It can only be purchased by messaging the author ("Lance") through the Gunboards.com forums on this thread:
https://www.gunboards.com/threads/done-at-last-my-smle-book.1205213/
I think there remains an opportunity for a really high-quality book on the Enfield service rifles, but "A Collector's View: The SMLE" is a definite improvement over the currently available works in terms of presenting information in a digestible and accessible manner.
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