Winston S. Churchill | The Second World War. London: Cassell and Co., 1948-1953

Winston S. Churchill

The Second World War. London: Cassell and Co., 1948-1953

6 volumes, 8vo. SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY CHURCHILL on the half-title. Numerous maps, diagrams, and tables throughout. Original black cloth, topstained, original dust jackets; topstaining marginally faded, scattered foxing to fore-edges, jackets variably faded, Volumes I and IV neatly price-clipped.

SECOND ENGLISH EDITION SET IN JACKETS, SIGNED BY CHURCHILL ON THE HALF-TITLE OF VOLUME I: “INSCRIBED BY WINSTON S. CHURCHILL 1957.”

Winston Churchill was famously disappointed to discover that the English first edition of Volume I had been printed by Cassell in a 10-point Bembo typeface, rather than the larger 12-point that Churchill had originally approved. This reduction enabled Cassell to print an additional 15,000 copies, but it led to snide remarks from “many of my friends,” according to Churchill, “that they would be happy to read” Volume I “as soon as they could find a magnifying glass.” The second edition, as a result, published the following year, 1949, was entirely reset in the larger 12-point type. “For this new issue,” Churchill wrote in his “Note to the New Edition,” “the publishers have found it possible to reset the entire book in a larger type, a change which it is hoped will be found agreeable to all readers.” The Volume I dust jacket, is labeled on the spine: “2ND. EDITION (RESET).” A further distinguishing feature of this set is that Volumes II, IV and VI are also second editions, in dust jackets with spine labels that uniformly state: “2ND. EDITION.” Volumes III and V did not have second editions published until the 1960s, and so never had similarly labeled jackets. Thus, these are all correct first and second editions in their correct jackets.

RARE THUS

REFERENCE:

Cohen A240.4 (I.d, II.b, III.a, IV.b, V.a, VI.b); Woods A123ba