Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$4500.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: This First English edition set is a signed binding by the legendary London-based Joseph William Zaehnsdorf (author of THE ART OF BOOKBINDING) in full cognac-colored oasis leather. The endpapers are marbled and elaborately gilt tooled, all edges are gilded, the spines are gilt-lettered in six compartments with raised bands. The contents are fine and unfoxed, the spines are modestly sunned. The books were very slightly trimmed for binding. A historic piece of work. First English Edition Set (Cohen A267.1[I-IV].a) (Woods A138a). 8vo (440 pages, 350 pages, 352 pages & 346 pages. Illustrated with maps and tables.)
Seller: CHARTWELL BOOKSELLERS, NEW YORK, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$6750.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: Very near fine set comprising the four First Edition volumes of Churchills classic history, illustrated with maps and genealogical tables. I: The Birth of Britain. II: Renaissance and Reformation. III: The Age of Revolution. IV: The Great Democracies. This highly sought after set comes in the original pictorial dust jackets, each with a bare minimum of wear, and scarce thus. What makes this set especially collectible is that in Volume I it is boldly signed in ink by Winston S. Churchill.
Seller: Mystery Pier Books, Inc.,ABAA, ILAB, ABA, West Hollywood, CA, U.S.A.
Price: US$9500.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: First Editions, First Printings SIGNED by Winston Churchill on a letter written by Churchill laid into the first volume. An attractive four volume set bound in fine material. All four books are in great shape with light wear to the edges. The pages are clean with NO marks or bookplates in the books. A lovely set SIGNED by the author.
Seller: Magnum Opus Rare Books, Missoula, MT, U.S.A.
Price: US$12240.48 + shipping
Description: First editions, first impressions, vol. IV a presentation copy to one of the historical advisers who collaborated on the book, the historian Maurice Shock, inscribed by Churchill on the initial blank "To Mr. Maurice Shock from Winston S. Churchill", the other three volumes with tipped-in printed facsimile presentation slips, as often used by Churchill. Maurice Shock (1926-2018) is credited on the acknowledgements page of the fourth volume: "I desire to record my thanks again to [four other contributors named]. and to Mr Maurice Shock of University College, Oxford, who have since helped in its completion". Shock served in the Intelligence Corps from 1945 to 1948, afterwards taking a place at Balliol College: "Shock graduated with a first in modern Greats and then enrolled as a graduate student at St Antony's College. His promise as a young academic was noted early, not least by Sir Winston Churchill, who invited him to spend a summer in the south of France to help with the writing of his History of the English Speaking Peoples" (ODNB). Churchill wrote to Clementine on 2 October 1956 "Mr. Shock. has done me a very good note on the first Gladstone and Disraeli chapter, and I look forward to receiving another fertile wodge in a fortnight. He is a very nice young man, and I am glad to have had him at the hotel for the week-end" (Gilbert, p. 1212). Throughout the rest of his long career Shock worked in academia, and served as vice-chancellor of the University of Leicester from 1977 to 1987, and as rector of Lincoln College, Oxford from 1987 to 1994. Churchill began his great history of Britain, the British Empire, and the United States during his period in the political wilderness in the early 1930s, but did not complete it until the latter 1950s, after his final retirement as Prime Minister. The events of the Second World War, the major interruption in the writing process, had reconfirmed his belief in the "special relationship", the shared heritage and destiny of Britain and the United States. Consequently he gave considerable attention to the key events of American history, especially the War of Independence and the Civil War. He worked with teams of academics for each volume, who provided the historical research which he then crafted into a narrative in distinctly Churchillian prose. The work met with acclaim and proved an international best-seller, further vindicating Churchill's receipt of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953. A masterpiece of readable, popular history, it remains in print today. Cohen A267.1(I)-(IV). Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. VIII, 1988. Four volumes, octavo. Original red cloth, spines lettered in gilt, top edges red. With dust jackets. Illustrated with maps and genealogical tables. Top edges sunned, very good clean copies in like jackets, a few nicks and shallow chips at extremities with tape repairs on versos.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Price: US$16105.89 + shipping
Description: First editions, first impressions, the first volume inscribed by the author on the half-title, "Winston S. Churchill 20 May 1956", the second and third volumes initialled by the author on the title pages. Volume 2 also has a printed presentation slip on the front free endpaper. Churchill's great history of Britain, the British Empire, and the United States met with acclaim and proved an international best-seller, further vindicating Churchill's receipt of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953. A masterpiece of readable, popular history, it remains in print today. Provenance: the collection of Steve Forbes. Cohen A267.1(I)-(IV).a. Four volumes, octavo. Original red cloth, spines lettered in gilt, top edges red. With dust jackets. Illustrated with maps and genealogical tables. Vol. I fore edge with pen jottings, very light staining to outer margins of same; unclipped jackets with light wear at extremities: very good copes in very good jackets.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Price: US$22500.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: This mixed First English edition presentation set, in dust jackets, is signed in each volume:"Winston S. Churchill" and hand-dated "1959" in ink. The set was presented by Churchill to his close friend and associate Frank Clarke, who famously hosted Winston and Clementine Churchill at his Miami Beach home in January and February 1946, prior to Churchill's March appearance at Fulton College, Missouri to deliver what would come to be known as his "Iron Curtain" speech. Volume I is the Fifth Printing of the First Edition, dated: January 1958 on the publication page. Volume II is the Second Printing of the First Edition, dated: March 1957. Volumes III and IV are both First Printings, dated 1957 and 1958, respectively. The dust jackets are all virtually mint, unclipped, save for Volume II which is very neatly price-clipped. The books are all slightly damp-stained, with cloth-fading along the board edges and scattered foxing to the fore-edges and prelims. The spines of Volume III and IV are very slightly creased, but the bindings are all otherwise square and tight and the contents fine. Quebec-born COLONEL FRANK W. CLARKE was the scion of a family that owned paper mills in Canada. He worked for Winston Churchill on the staff of The British Gazette during the General Strike of 1926, and was a shipowner, whose vessels served in Allied operations throughout World War II as hospital, supply and troop ships. The Churchills notably stayed at his lakeside cabin for two days of rest following the Quebec Conference. A very personal association for Churchill and a marvelous multiple-signed set, even with the slightly later editions. First English Edition Set (Mixed Printings) (Cohen A267.1[I].d[II.b[III-IV].a) (Woods A138a). 8vo (440 pages, 350 pages, 352 pages & 346 pages. Illustrated with maps and tables.)
Seller: CHARTWELL BOOKSELLERS, NEW YORK, NY, U.S.A.