CHURCHILL, Winston S. The Second World War. London: Cassell & Co. 1948–54.
Six vols, 8vo. Original black cloth, spine lettered in gilt, top edge stained red, in dust-jacket; illustrated with numerous maps and diagrams some folding, some printed in colours; jackets with spines slightly faded and light wear to extremities; the odd mark, but overall a very good, clean set; bookseller’s ticket ‘The Book Shop …. Welwyn Garden City’ to front pastedown of vols I and II; authorial inscription ‘Inscribed by Winston Churchill. 1950’ in blue ink to front free endpaper of vol. III.
An attractive set of first printings of Churchill’s monumental history of the Second World War, the third volume inscribed by the author.
Drawing on his own wartime papers, recollections, and unparalleled access to official records, Churchill’s six-volume history of the Second World War remains the most influential contemporary account of the conflict in the English language. Though shaped by continuing security restrictions, the masterly fusion of memoir and history, written from the perspective of a principal actor in the events described, yields a narrative of singular authority and immediacy, tracing the origins, conduct, and consequences of the war.
Churchill completed the work in 1953, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature the same year ‘for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values’.
This bright first edition set is further distinguished by Churchill’s inscription, without dedication, to the front free endpaper of Volume III.
SKU: 2125430