Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Winston S. Churchill. Great Contemporaries. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1937.
Price: US$99.22 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Cover moderately worn, slightly soiled, esp backstrip, w some shelfwear. Slightly loose from binding. Very slightly cocked. Owner's names on front paste-down and front endpaper. Underlining in title page. Small annotation on back paste-down. First edition, second printing.
Seller: Gurra's Books, Hemse, Sweden
Winston S. Churchill. GREAT CONTEMPORARIES. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1937.
Price: US$125.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: First US edition. 8vo in cloth. 299 pp. VG. Light wear; a little heavier at spine ends. Binding is strong. Text block is clean and tight. Interior is clean. No writing or markings of any kind. Ships in a box packed with care.
Seller: Lost Time Books, Brattleboro, VT, U.S.A.
Price: US$200.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description:
Seller: Ann Becker, Houston, TX, U.S.A.
Price: US$450.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: This is a very good copy of the First American edition in a price-clipped dust jacket that is shelfworn, with multiple short tears and creases along the spine and fractional losses across the edges, front and rear, but with good color and overall quality. The contents are fine and unfoxed, with tanning to the pastedowns and front free endpaper only. First American Edition (Cohen A105.2.a) (Woods A43ab). 8vo (299 pages, illustrated with 21 portrait photographs)
Seller: CHARTWELL BOOKSELLERS, NEW YORK, NY, U.S.A.
Winston S. Churchill. Great Contemporaries. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1937.
Price: US$450.00 + shipping
Description: This is a jacketed first U.S. edition, first printing, of Churchill's much praised collection of insightful essays about 21 leading personalities of the day - including the likes of Lawrence, Shaw, and, most famously, Hitler. Condition is very good in a very good minus dust jacket. The blue cloth binding is square and tight with sharp corners and only light shelf wear to the bottom edges. The contents are clean with no previous ownership marks, no spotting, and only mild age-toning. The red-stained top edges are sunned and mottled. Differential toning to the endpapers corresponding to dust jacket flaps confirms that this copy has spent life jacketed. The dust jacket is noteworthy in two respects the blue spine retains rich, entirely unfaded blue hue and the jacket's white sections and panels are unusually clean, only lightly soiled. Shelf presentation is quite respectable and the dust jacket is unclipped, retaining the original "$4.00" front flap price. There is shallow loss at the spine ends, upper rear panel, upper rear flap, and flap fold corners, as well as a short closed tear to the upper front face and scuffing to the front joint and front flap fold. The jacket is protected beneath a clear, removable, archival cover.Neville Chamberlain, perhaps Churchills most vexing political opponent at the time Great Contemporaries was published, wrote to Churchill on 4 October 1937: "How you can go on throwing off these sparkling sketches with such apparent ease & such sustained brilliance is a constant source of wonder to me." Naturally, in the course of sketching the character of his contemporaries Churchill necessarily reveals some of his own character and perspective.Churchill's portrait of T.E. Lawrence, published here just a few years before the Second World War, might well have been written about the author rather than by him: "The impression of the personality of Lawrence remains living and vivid upon the minds of his friends, and the sense of his loss is in no way dimmed among his countrymen. All feel the poorer that he has gone from us. In these days dangers and difficulties gather upon Britain and her Empire, and we are also conscious of a lack of outstanding figures with which to overcome them. Here was a man in whom there existed not only an immense capacity for service, but that touch of genius which everyone recognizes and no one can define." (Great Contemporaries, p.164) Churchill's piece about Hitler can be a shock to the modern ear, as it underscores his ability to write a balanced appraisal of his subject while expressing his earnest desire to avoid the war that he would fight with such ferocious resolve only a few years later. There is a reason this book has seen many subsequent editions in the intervening years. It was written with what has been called "penetrating evaluation, humor, and understanding."While some of the subjects of Churchill's sketches have receded into history, many remain well-known and all remain compellingly drawn. This is as engaging a read today as it was in 1937. Reference: Cohen A105.2.a, Woods/ICS A43(ab.1), Langworth p.179
Seller: Churchill Book Collector ABAA/ILAB/IOBA, San Diego, CA, U.S.A.
CHURCHILL, Winston S.. Great Contemporaries.. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1937, 1937.
Price: US$481.04 + shipping
Description: First US edition, first printing, of Churchill's collection of essays on the outstanding figures of his age, including reflections on T. E. Lawrence, Trotsky, and Hitler; "it is, of course, an important part of the canon and belongs in every library" (Langworth, p. 179). This copy is from the collection of Churchill's bibliographer Ronald Cohen. The US edition was published the month following the British edition. "The type style and leading make for a more readable book; its wider, taller size and more interesting dust jacket make it aesthetically superior to the English edition. of the four Churchill works published by Putnam between 1937 and 1941, this is the hardest to find in a dust jacket" (ibid., pp. 181-2). 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 A105.2a. Richard Langworth, A Connoisseur's Guide to the Books of Sir Winston Churchill, 1998. Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine and front cover lettered in silver on red ground. With dust jacket. With 21 half-tone photographic plates. Contemporary bookplate signed "Gertrude Montgomery" to front free endpaper. Very light bumping and rubbing, contents a little toned; jacket a little worn, price-clipped: a very good copy in very good jacket.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Winston S. Churchill. Great Contemporaries. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1937.
Price: US$1000.00 + shipping
Description: This is a jacketed first U.S. edition, first printing, of Churchill's much praised collection of insightful essays about 21 leading personalities of the day - including the likes of Lawrence, Shaw, and, most famously, Hitler. While not quite perfect, this is certainly the best copy we have encountered. Condition is better than near fine in a dust jacket approaching near fine. The blue cloth binding is square, tight, and immaculately clean. We note only mild bruising to the lower corners and some wrinkling to the spine ends. The contents are improbably bright and crisp. The book feels unread. The red top stain remains vividly bright. The untrimmed fore edges are likewise improbably clean, showing not even any appreciable age-toning. Only the endpapers show a little transfer browning from the pastedown glue. The sole previous ownership marks are contemporary a mans name, "Los Angeles" address, and "1938" date inked on the front pastedown, with this owners presumed wife (same surname) having inked her own name and a date of "March 12, 1938" on the half title. The deep blue hue of this dust jackets spine and front face proved prone to toning and the paper of the jacket prone to brittleness and consequent loss. This jacket is beautifully bright, the blue hue entirely unfaded. Moreover, the jacket is notably clean and highly complete, with wear including some short, closed tears, attendant wrinkling, and only fractional chipping confined to extremities. The dust jacket is neatly price-clipped, but compensates with the sticker of the Los Angeles bookshop that originally sold it and their price of "$4.00" (the original publishers price) affixed to the upper rear flap. The jacket is protected beneath a clear, removable, archival cover.Neville Chamberlain, perhaps Churchills most vexing political opponent at the time Great Contemporaries was published, wrote to Churchill on 4 October 1937: "How you can go on throwing off these sparkling sketches with such apparent ease & such sustained brilliance is a constant source of wonder to me." Naturally, in the course of sketching the character of his contemporaries Churchill necessarilyreveals some of his own character and perspective.Churchill's portrait of T.E. Lawrence, published here just a few years before the Second World War, might well have been written about the author rather than by him: "The impression of the personality of Lawrence remains living and vivid upon the minds of his friends, and the sense of his loss is in no way dimmed among his countrymen. All feel the poorer that he has gone from us. In these days dangers and difficulties gather upon Britain and her Empire, and we are also conscious of a lack of outstanding figures with which to overcome them. Here was a man in whom there existed not only an immense capacity for service, but that touch of genius which everyone recognizes and no one can define." (Great Contemporaries, p.164) Churchill's piece about Hitler can be a shock to the modern ear, as it underscores his ability to write a balanced appraisal of his subject while expressing his earnest desire to avoid the war that he would fight with such ferocious resolve only a few years later. There is a reason this book has seen many subsequent editions in the intervening years. It was written with what has been called "penetrating evaluation, humor, and understanding."While some of the subjects of Churchill's sketches have receded into history, many remain well-known and all remain compellingly drawn. This is as engaging a read today as it was in 1937. Reference: Cohen A105.2.a, Woods/ICS A43(ab.1), Langworth p.179
Seller: Churchill Book Collector ABAA/ILAB/IOBA, San Diego, CA, U.S.A.