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CHURCHILL, Winston L[eonard]. Spencer.

The Story of the Malakand Field Force

An Episode of Frontier War. New Edition.

First printing of the Silver Library Edition of Churchill's first book, which first had been published the previous year. This copy signed and dated by Churchill on the half-title; “Winston Spencer Churchill, 1899.” Based on his exploits with the Malakand Field Force led by Sir Bindon Blood on the north-west frontier of India in 1897, which Churchill accompanied as a war correspondent for the Daily Telegraph. As he was still in India, the checking of the proofs was undertaken “by an uncle of mine, a very brilliant man and himself a ready writer. For some reason or other he missed many scores of misprints and made no attempt to organise the punctuation.” This led to a some fairly severe comments, these however mixed with compliments: “The Athenæum said ‘Pages of Napier punctuated by a mad printer’s reader’” (My Early Life). One reader unstinting in his praise was the prime minister, Lord Salisbury, who called Churchill for a personal interview and expressed his “admiration not only for its matter but for its style” and thought it a “truer picture” of events than any other documents he had read. The reception of Malakand was key in convincing Churchill that he could live by the pen, as well as by the sword. Nice early signature.

Small octavo, (186 × 123 mm). Later bottle green half morocco on green flecked white cloth, raised bands, double fillet panels to the compartments, title gilt directly to the spine, top edge gilt. Portrait frontispiece of Sir Bindon Blood and 6 folding colour maps. Text block lightly toned as usual, otherwise a very good copy.