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Churchill, Winston, 1874-1965. A ROVING COMMISSION : MY EARLY LIFE. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1930.

Price: US$37.50 + shipping

Description: Octavo; Fair+; Hardcover; Spine, red with gold print; Boards in red cloth with gold print, mild wear to spine caps, toning to spine, light shelfwear, slightly cocked spine; Text block has cracked front hinge, spine break at p. 82, slight occasional foxing, clean text; xii, 377 pages, frontispiece, illustrated (b&w plates). 1359259. FP New Rockville Stock.

Seller: Second Story Books, ABAA, Rockville, MD, U.S.A.

Winston S. Churchill. A Roving Commission. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1930.

Price: US$130.02 + shipping

Condition: Very Good

Description: A Roving Commission, Winston S. Churchill, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1930, US First Edition The US version of My Early Life, this is an autobiography from the author's birth in 1874 to around 1902. The book begins by describing his childhood and schooldays and how his family decided his path in life was to join the army as an officer. The book ends with mention of his marriage in 1908 stating that he lived happily ever after. The book is illustrated throughout with black and white photographs and maps. A US First Edition in very good condition. The binding is straight and tight, the red cloth boards clean and the lettering bright. There is slight sunning to the spine. The end papers and pages are free from marks, tears and inscriptions. Will be dispatched wrapped in bubblewrap and in a cardboard box.

Seller: Grimes Hill Book Club, Wythall, United Kingdom

CHURCHILL, WINSTON S. A ROVING COMMISSION, MY EARLY LIFE. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1930.

Price: US$150.00 + shipping

Description: Spine and top1/2" of rear cover sunned. Front cover and spine lettered in gilt. Title-page with light foxing at periphery. Frontispiece portraity of Jenny Jerome, Sir Winston's mother. This is the American edition of "Mt Early Life". Collated complete with 28 illustrations and maps. A very clean copy through the text. 377pp. Woods A37(b). Size: Medium Crown Octavo

Seller: Glenn Books, ABAA, ILAB, Prairie Village, KS, U.S.A.

Churchill, Winston. A Roving Commission. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1930.

Price: US$170.00 + shipping

Condition: Very Good

Description: Red-orange cloth with gilt lettering on front and black lettering on spine. Size: 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall

Seller: Top Edge Gilt, Scottsdale, AZ, U.S.A.

Winston Churchill. A Roving Commission: My Early Life. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1930.

Price: US$175.00 + shipping

Condition: Very Good

Description: First American Edition with "A" and colophon. Red cloth boards are in very good condition, spine color only lightly faded. Clean, has a good binding. Name written and dated 25 Dec. 30 on the front free endpaper, no other marks or notations. 377 pages. No dust jacket.

Seller: Ed's Editions LLC, ABAA, West Columbia, SC, U.S.A.

Winston S. Churchill. If Lee Had Not Won at Gettysburg" by Winston Churchill in Scribner's Magazine, December 1930. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1930.

Price: US$200.00 + shipping

Description: This is the first published appearance of Churchill's engaging speculative history essay in Scribner's Magazine, Vol. LXXXVIII, No. 6, pp.587-97. Scribner's Magazine published the 11-page article as part of a series of "What If" articles by eminent authors of the time. Churchill's article displays both the commanding grasp of history and the facility for extrapolation that made him so formidable as both a statesman and a writer. Churchill’s interest in America's great struggle was quite serious; Churchill toured Virginia battlefields with the great Civil War historian Douglas Southall Freeman and toured Gettysburg with none other than Dwight Eisenhower. A dozen years later, as wartime British Prime Minister, Churchill would powerfully invoke the memory of the Civil War and of Gettysburg when addressing the U.S. Congress on 19 May 1943. And thirty years later, Churchill would publish a book on the subject, The American Civil War (1961), excerpted from his epic A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. Of note, this December 1930 issue of Scribner’s also features an illustrated full-page advertisement for the U.S. first edition of Churchill’s autobiography of his early life, A Roving Commission, which was published in late October by Charles Scribner’s Sons. This copy of the original magazine appearance of Churchill’s essay is very good indeed. The binding is not only clean with firmly attached covers, but nearly complete and entirely square, with no vertical creasing or forward lean to the spine. The covers show light soiling, a single, angled crease to the front cover, and the usual light wear and short closed tears to the extremities, which overhang the contents. The spine is only lightly sunned with superficial wear to the spine ends and hinges. The contents show no previous ownership marks and no spotting. Very mild age-toning seems confined to the untrimmed edges.Reference: Cohen C344, Woods C160. Churchill's essay later appeared in a 1931 Book titled If, or History Rewritten (Cohen B43, Woods B18). Later still the essay was published in The Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill, Vol. IV, pp. 73-84.

Seller: Churchill Book Collector ABAA/ILAB/IOBA, San Diego, CA, U.S.A.

Churchill, Winston fx. A ROVING COMMISSION My Early life. Scribner's, NY, 1930.

Price: US$201.00 + shipping

Description: VG book, no DJ. Gilt lettered orange cloth. Bkplt, else FINE inside: text, plates & photos clean as new. 8.5"x5.5", 377pp. Spine sunned a bit, gilt lettering darkened some. FAE, "A" & Scribner's seal on cp. Very clean. No glue browned pastedowns or any aging, foxing, memorabilia, etc. Very nice text block edges. Lastly, book tends to stay closed when stood on its spine. VG book. 1st Am ed. 8.5"x5.5", 377pp.

Seller: Quiet Friends IOBA, Lyndonville, NY, U.S.A.

CHURCHILL, Winston S.. A Roving Commission. My Early Life.. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1930, 1930.

Price: US$487.56 + shipping

Description: First US edition, first printing, of Churchill's only volume of sustained autobiography, retitled from its British publication under My Early Life earlier that month, and covering his formative years from his birth in 1874 until his election as MP for Oldham in 1900. This copy is from the collection of Churchill's bibliographer Ronald Cohen. Among his most widely read works, it provides a highly entertaining account of his childhood, schooldays at Harrow, military training at Sandhurst, experiences as a war correspondent in Cuba, service attached to the Malakand Field Force on the North-West Frontier Province of India, charging with the 21st Lancers at Omdurman, and as a POW in South Africa during the Boer War. Overall, it gives a "witty and elegiac account of his youth shot through with regret at the decline of the social and imperial order in which he had grown up" (ODNB). Provenance: Ronald Cohen, with his ownership inscription in pencil on the front free endpaper. Cohen's Bibliography of the Writings of Sir Winston Churchill, published in three volumes in 2006, is the authoritative source for collectors, librarians, and dealers. Cohen A91.2.a. Octavo. Original red cloth, spine and front cover lettered in gilt. With dust jacket. With 28 maps and illustrations. Slight sunning at head of spine; jacket sunned as often and worn, not price-clipped: a near-fine copy in good jacket.

Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom

Winston S Churchill. A Roving Commission. Charles Scribner, 1930.

Price: US$500.00 + shipping

Condition: Very Good

Description: First US Edition of Churchill's autobiography relating his childhood and coming of age until his entry to Parliament. Previously published in UK as My Early Life". this is a true first edition and first printing with the confirmatory "A" on the title page. The dust jacket is not original but a reproduction produced by a Churchill dealer, Richard Langworth a number of years ago. The orginal dust jackets were filmsy and easily damaged. Therefore, a previous owner of this book has chosen to recover it in Langworth's reproduction (which here is in very good condition). What that owner has done however is paste the inner front flap of the original 1935 dust jacket onto the front free end plate, see photo. The book itself is in excellent condition, binging tight, illustrations clear and pages free of foxing. The bright crimsot cloth cover is well preserved wirh some sun bleaching to the upper edge and more extensively to the spine. Overall a very nice copy that will enrich the library of a Churchill collector. The vendor has been one such for a number of years and has a number of other volumes he will be listing in due course.

Seller: Australian Private Collector, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Winston S. Churchill. A ROVING COMMISSION: My Early Life -Third Printing of the First American Edition in Dust Jacket-. Charles Scribners Sons, New York, 1930.

Price: US$550.00 + shipping

Condition: Very Good

Description: This is a very good copy of the Third Printing of the First American edition in the rare dust jacket, which is price-clipped and spine-faded, as per usual, but most attractive overall, quite bright and fresh on the front and rear faces, and thoroughly intact across the spine, with just a few closed tears at the head and tail. The book itself is virtually mint, inside and out, with a tiny vintage bookshop plate on the rear pastedown. First American Edition (Third Printing) (Cohen A91.2.c)(Woods A37b). 16mo (378 pages, photo frontis, maps, illustrated. With Scribner ?A? on copyright page.)

Seller: CHARTWELL BOOKSELLERS, NEW YORK, NY, U.S.A.

Winston S. Churchill. A Roving Commission. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1930.

Price: US$650.00 + shipping

Description: This is a the U.S. first edition, first printing of Churchill's extremely popular autobiography, covering the years from his birth in 1874 to his first few years in Parliament. This is a very good copy in the scarce first printing dust jacket. Published in England as My Early Life, this is one of the few Churchill first editions for which the U.S. edition bears a different title than the British. Interestingly, A Roving Commission was the title proposed by Churchill himself and favored by his American publisher. One can hardly ask for more adventurous content. These were momentous and formative years for Churchill, including his time as a war correspondent and cavalry officer in theatres as varied as Cuba, northwest India, and sub-Saharan and southern Africa. This time contained a wide range of experiences in Churchill’s life. Not only was he developing as an author, publishing his first books, and making his first lecture tour of North America, but this was also the time of his capture and daring escape during the Boer War, which made him a celebrity and helped launch his political career. Churchill would take his seat in Parliament only weeks after the end of Queen Victoria's reign. A Roving Commission remains one of the most popular and widely read of all Churchill's books. And for good reason, as the work certainly ranks among the most charming and accessible of his many books. An original 1930 review likened it to a "beaker of Champagne." That effervescent charm endures; a more recent writer called it "a racy, humorous, self-deprecating classic of autobiography." To be sure, Churchill takes some liberties with facts and perhaps unduly lightens or over-simplifies certain events, but this is eminently forgivable and in keeping with the wit, pace, and engaging style that characterizes the book. The book sold very well at the time and has seen a great many editions since, many of them collectible in their own right, but of course a premium attaches to first editions, both British and U.S. Jacketed copies of the U.S. first edition are scarce. Even decent unjacketed copies are unusual. The red-orange cloth binding proved highly susceptible to fading and soiling and the fragile dust jacket proved highly vulnerable to wear and severe fading of the orange color, particularly on the jacket spine. This first printing copy (confirmed by the Scribner’s "A" on the copyright page) features a square and tight binding with sharp corners, bright gilt, only light wear to extremities and, most notably, a bright, unfaded spine with only trivial sunning to the spine ends corresponding to minor dust jacket losses. The contents are clean with no spotting and no previous ownership marks. Some residue and scarring on the front pastedown indicates removal of a bookplate and there is a two-inch cosmetic split to the paper at the inner front hinge that affects neither the mull beneath nor overall binding integrity. The first printing dust jacket has a neatly price-clipped front flap, loss to the spine ends to a maximum depth of .375 inch, and a 1.5 x .5 triangular loss at the upper front face. The spine ends and upper front face loss are reinforced on the jacket verso. As with most surviving jacketed copies, the spine is significantly faded, though the title, author, and publisher print remains clear. The dust jacket is protected beneath a removable, archival quality clear cover. Bibliographic reference: Cohen A91.2.a, Woods/ICS A37(b.1), Langworth p. 134.

Seller: Churchill Book Collector ABAA/ILAB/IOBA, San Diego, CA, U.S.A.

Winston S. Churchill. A Roving Commission. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1930.

Price: US$950.00 + shipping

Description: This is the U.S. first edition, first printing of Churchill's extremely popular autobiography, covering the years from his birth in 1874 to his first few years in Parliament. This is a very good copy in the scarce first printing dust jacket, previously belonging to the personal library of Churchill's bibliographer, Ronald Cohen.The book sold very well at the time and, enduringly popular, has seen a great many editions since, many of them collectible in their own right. Of course, a premium attaches to first editions, both British and U.S. Jacketed copies of the U.S. first edition are scarce. Even decent unjacketed copies are unusual. The red-orange cloth binding proved highly susceptible to fading and soiling and the thin, fragile dust jacket proved highly vulnerable to wear and severe fading of the orange color, particularly on the jacket spine.This copy is first printing, confirmed by the Scribner’s "A" on the copyright page. Befitting a jacketed copy, the vividly-hued cloth binding remains bright, only mildly dulled on the spine and with only mild soiling. The contents are clean and bright with a crisp feel and no spotting. The sole previous owner mark is that of Ronald Cohen, who wrote "From the library | of | Ronald I. Cohen" in pencil on the front free endpaper recto. The dust jacket is unclipped, retaining the original "$3.50" price on the upper front flap. The jacket shows light overall soiling. There is shallow, irregular strip loss at the spine ends (not impacting the title or publisher print) and minor loss to the flap fold corners. The spine is significantly toned with a split along the rear joint, though the orange spine panel still shows orange hue. The jacket is protected beneath a clear, removable, archival cover.Published in England as My Early Life, this is one of the few Churchill first editions for which the U.S. edition bears a different title than the British. Interestingly, A Roving Commission was the title proposed by Churchill himself and favored by his American publisher.One can hardly ask for more adventurous content. These momentous and formative years for Churchill included his time as an itinerant war correspondent and cavalry officer in theaters ranging from Cuba, to northwest India, to sub-Saharan and southern Africa. Churchill also recounts his capture and escape during the Boer War, which made him a celebrity and helped launch his political career.Herein Churchill says: "Twenty to twenty-five! These are the years! Don't be content with things as they are You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true, and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her " (p.60) By the end of his own twenty-fifth year, Churchill had been one of the world’s highest paid war correspondents, published his first five books, made his first lecture tour of North America, braved and breasted both battlefields and the hustings, and been elected to Parliament, where he took his first seat only weeks after the end of Queen Victoria’s reign.A Roving Commission remains one of the most popular and widely read of Churchill's books. To be sure, Churchill takes some liberties with facts and perhaps unduly lightens or over-simplifies certain events. Nonetheless, the factual experiences of Churchill’s early life compete with any fiction, and any liberties or simplifications are forgivable, in keeping with the wit, pace, and engaging style that characterize the book.Reference: Cohen A91.2.a, Woods/ICS A37(b.1), Langworth p. 134.

Seller: Churchill Book Collector ABAA/ILAB/IOBA, San Diego, CA, U.S.A.

Winston S. Churchill. A Roving Commission, a presentation copy inscribed and dated in New York City by Churchill on Christmas 1931 during his convalescence weeks after a near-fatal accident. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1930.

Price: US$10000.00 + shipping

Description: This presentation copy of Winston Churchill's extremely popular autobiography was inscribed in New York City in December 1931, just weeks after Churchill’s near-fatal accident, almost certainly as a Christmas gift to one of the people who aided his convalescence. The inscription, inked in five lines on the half title, reads "To | Theresa Hawkins | from | Winston S. Churchill | Christmas 1931".The U.S. first edition, second printing is distinguished from the first printing by only a single character – namely absence of the Scribner’s "A" on the title page verso. This second printing’s binding, contents, and dust jacket are all otherwise identical to those of the first printing. Published in December 1930, the second printing swiftly followed the first printing of late October 1930. Condition of this inscribed presentation copy is very good plus in a good dust jacket. The binding remains square and tight with sharp corners, the orange-red hue of the cloth still vivid on the spine and covers. The binding shows only light handling and soiling and a hint of toning to extremities, corresponding to small dust jacket losses. The contents are respectably clean, modest spotting mostly confined to the endpapers and prelims, only light and occasional within the text. The sole previous ownership mark is the author’s inscription. Differential toning to the endpapers corresponds to the jacket flaps, confirming what the bright binding testifies - that this copy has spent life jacketed. The dust jacket is chipped and worn, but both unclipped, retaining the "$3.50" front flap price, and uncommonly bright, with the red-orange spine panel only faintly duller than that of the front face. The white spine panels and rear face show overall soiling, as does the navy panel of the lower front face. Closed tears and shallow losses are ubiquitous to the edges, the most significant being a 1.25 inch (3.2 cm) deep loss to the upper rear face corner. None of the losses impacts any print. The dust jacket is protected beneath a clear, removable, archival cover.When he arrived in New York on 11 December 1931 to begin a lecture tour, Churchill had already been a Member of Parliament for more than a quarter of a century and held more than half a dozen Cabinet positions. But what lay ahead was arguably more remarkable still – more than thirty additional years in Parliament, as well as two premierships spanning more than eight and a half years at 10 Downing Street. This second act almost ended abruptly.Two days after he arrived in New York, on 13 December, Churchill received a dinner invitation from his old friend, Bernard Baruch. Churchill knew Baruch lived on Fifth Avenue and had been there several times, but he did not know the exact address. After he left his cab to search on foot, he was met with the peril of every transatlantic traveler; he looked the wrong way to cross the street – and was consequently struck by a car. Witnesses feared he had been killed. "It was not until December 21 that Churchill was well enough to leave Lenox Hill Hospital and for two more weeks he had to remain in bed at the Waldorf-Astoria." (Gilbert, Vol. V, p.421) Hence Churchill was convalescing at the Waldorf-Astoria when this book was inscribed. While we have been unable to learn more about the recipient, "Theresa Hawkins", it seems probable to the point of near certainty that Ms. Hawkins was staff at either the Waldorf or the hospital, to whom Churchill felt sufficiently appreciative to make a gift of an inscribed book at Christmas. This was long a custom of Churchill for those who worked for him and held his regard, particularly at Christmas. This second printing of A Roving Commission would have notionally been available and procured for the occasion from a New York City bookseller, having been published late in 1930.PLEASE NOTE THAT A CONSIDERABLY MORE DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THIS ITEM IS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST.Reference: Cohen A91.2.b, Woods/ICS A37(b.2), Langworth p. 134.

Seller: Churchill Book Collector ABAA/ILAB/IOBA, San Diego, CA, U.S.A.

Winston S. Churchill. A Roving Commission, a magnificent, jacketed copy of the first edition, first printing, inscribed and dated by Churchill in September 1931. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1930.

Price: US$18500.00 + shipping

Description: This is a rare and compelling convergence of edition, condition, popularity, and provenance. This U.S. first edition, first printing of Winston S. Churchill’s autobiography of his early life – perhaps foremost among his most enduringly popular works – is an exceptionally well-preserved copy in a likewise exceptionally well-preserved first issue dust jacket. Condition alone would render this copy magnificent, but this copy is also inscribed and dated by the author within a year of publication. The inscription, inked in three lines on the front free endpaper recto, reads: "Inscribed by | Winston S. Churchill | Sept. 1931". This first edition, first printing is distinguished thus by the first issue dust jacket and the Scribner’s "A" on the title page verso. This first printing was published in late October 1930, less than a year before it was inscribed. The U.S. first edition was aesthetically striking, bound in a bright red-orange cloth with vertical and horizontal intersecting blind rules of varying thickness on the front cover and spine, these framing the gilt spine and front cover print. The contents feature untrimmed fore edges. The dust jacket front face and spine feature a bright red-orange center panel, complementing the binding, capped by white ends on the spine and by navy blue panels on the front face. The net aesthetic effect is commandingly bold and arresting – not unsuited to the author and content. Unfortunately, the red-orange cloth binding proved highly susceptible to fading and soiling and the thin, fragile dust jacket proved highly vulnerable to wear and severe fading, particularly on the jacket spine. Jacketed copies of the U.S. first edition are scarce and respectable unjacketed copies are unusual.This copy truly impresses. Conservatively, we grade both the volume and dust jacket as near fine. It would be exceptional thus for condition alone. Inscribed and dated, it is a prize. Even without hyperbolizing, we will nonetheless swiftly run short of superlatives. The red-orange cloth binding is square, clean, bright, and tight, with no appreciable color shift between the covers and spine. We note only incidental signs of handling in the form of a barely discernible hint of soiling to the spine and very lightly bruised lower corners. The contents are simply the brightest and cleanest we have ever seen, improbably bright in fact. Even the page edges – including the top edge and untrimmed fore edges – are strikingly bright and clean. Searching for flaws we note only a little original binding glue residue to the bottom edge of the text block adjacent to the spine, two small marks to the front pastedown (as if from something once laid in) and a light, faint finger smudge to the bottom edge of the front free endpaper – notionally, though certainly not definitively, dating from when the page was inscribed by the author.The dust jacket is simply the best-preserved example we have ever seen – entirely complete with no loss or tears, and, like the contents strikingly, improbably, magnificently bright. Soiling is incidental. If not for a negligible wear to extremities and some scuffs to the beautifully bight orange spine panel, one might not believe this is an original first issue jacket. Marvelously, it most certainly is. The jacket is protected beneath a clear, removable, archival cover.The author’s inscription remains distinct, showing only mild spread and fade consonant with the ink and age. It seems clear that Churchill’s pen was imperfect on the day, evidenced by a little bleed of the ink in the "ed" of "Inscribed" and a stray mark at the top of the "W" in "Winston".This copy is housed in a dark red cloth Solander case with gilt-printed, black leather spine label.Reference: Cohen A91.2.a, Woods/ICS A37(b.1), Langworth p. 134.

Seller: Churchill Book Collector ABAA/ILAB/IOBA, San Diego, CA, U.S.A.