Oct 31, 2017 | Videos
2 volumes, octavo. Original red cloth, titles and gilt rules to spines, title and Marlborough crest gilt and blind rules to front boards. With the dust jackets. Housed in a custom red cloth solander box, with a set of the first US edition. First edition, first impression, one of only two known copies with the original dust jacket, and the earliest Churchill title thus issued.
Cohen, who had never seen a copy of the second volume in the dust jacket, suggests 6,250 as “a very close approximation of the number of copies sold … includ both the Macmillan and The Times Book Club issues. I have seen no information which would enable me to separate the number of copies in each issue”.
Churchill’s biography of his father was published on 2 January 1906 to “almost universal acclaim in the Press” (Churchill, Winston S. Churchill II) the Sunday Times remarking on Churchill’s “maturity of judgement, levelheadedness and discretion” and the Spectator praising his style: “He has chosen the grand manner … but the general effect is of dignity and ease.” Churchill also received plaudits from a number of well-known political biographers, J. A. Spender, biographer of Campbell-Bannerman and Asquith, called it a “brilliant book”, and W. F. Monypenny, author of the Life of Disraeli, remarked that “alike in style and architecture and for its spirit, grasp and insight the book seems to me truly admirable”.
Oct 31, 2017 | Videos
Octavo. Original dark pink cloth, titles to spine and front board gilt, publisher’s device and broad single rules to covers in blind, bottom edge untrimmed. First edition, first impression, first state of the text (without the cancel half-title), second state of binding as usual. “In all 11,000 copies of the full-priced British edition were sold” (Cohen).
Churchill’s first volume of sustained biography is a highly entertaining account of his childhood, schooldays at Harrow, military training at Sandhurst, experiences as a war correspondent in Cuba, and service attached to the Malakand field force on the northwest frontier of India, charging with the 21st lancers at Omdurman, and as a POW in South Africa during the Boer War.
Oct 31, 2017 | Videos
Octavo. Original green cloth, gilt-lettered spine, blind rules extending over spine and front board, front board with publisher’s device in blind. With the dust jacket. Housed in a custom green morocco solander box. First edition, first impression, an unusually bright copy of Churchill’s final book before the outbreak of the Second World War, and the last published by Thornton Butterworth, who went into liquidation shortly after.
Churchill’s weekly commentaries arguing against appeasement were first published in the Evening Standard and subsequently syndicated throughout Europe. On receiving his own copy from Churchill, Clement Atlee wrote, “It must be a melancholy satisfaction to you to see how right you were” (cited after Cohen). Cohen states that Step By Step was published in an edition of 7,500 copies on 27 June, just over two months before the declaration of war. The condition of most copies encountered suggests that the book was read avidly, a fate which this copy appears to have been entirely spared.
Oct 31, 2017 | Videos
Lower out corners very lightly bumped, small pale mark to rear board (20 x 10 mm), half-title partially tanned. An exceptionally bright copy in the dust jacket with a few small spots, a very short closed tear to the foot of the spine panel, and trivial nicks at the foot of the joints between panels and flaps. First edition, sole printing, a superb copy in the scarce first issue jacket, priced 18/- net. A total of 5,000 copies were printed; according to Woods 3,381 were sold at 18 shillings before June 1940, when the book was re-issued as a cheap edition, priced at 7s. 6d (though Churchill wrote to Clementine two weeks after publication claiming 4,000 had been sold).
An important collection of Churchill’s speeches, warning of the dangers of a rearmed Germany. A contemporary review in the journal of the Royal Institute for International Affairs noted that “apart from their literary graces” Churchill’s speeches were remarkable because of “the restraint of their language” in view of the “blunders and inaccuracies” of the government and for his technical mastery: “There seems to be nothing from Naval Strategy to the jigs and tools in an aircraft factory … on which Mr Churchill is not an expert.”
Oct 31, 2017 | Videos
Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt with blind rules extending over boards, publisher’s device in blind to both boards, title gilt to front, top edge blue. With the dust jacket. Housed in a custom blue morocco solander box. First edition, first impression, first state, a superb copy of this series of essays on “Great men of our age”, which includes T. E. Lawrence, Trotsky and Hitler (“We cannot tell whether Hitler will be the man who will once again let loose upon the world another war in which civilization will irretrievably succumb, or whether he will go down in history as the man who restored honour and peace of mind to the great Germanic nation and brought it back serene, helpful and strong, to the forefront of the European family circle”).
On receiving his advance copy, Neville Chamberlain wrote to Churchill immediately; “How you can go on throwing off these sparkling sketches with such apparent ease & such sustained brilliance, in the midst of all your other occupations is a constant source of wonder to me” (cited after Cohen). One of 5,000 copies printed.
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