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Description: First edition, second printing, presentation copy to the acting-Governor of the Bahamas during Churchill's recuperation from a near-death experience, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "To Charles Dundas from Winston S. Churchill. Nassau. Jan. 1931" [sic - 1932]. Churchill inscribed the book during his stay in Nassau in the Bahamas, following his near-fatal collision with a car in New York on 13 December 1931. Churchill sailed for Nassau on 31 December and recuperated there until 22 January. He wrote to his son Randolph "Here I lead the life as nearly as possible of a vegetable" (Gilbert, p. 391). On 5 January, the Bahamas Legislature gave Churchill a banquet, which was presided over by Charles Dundas as acting-Governor. This was Churchill's first public appearance since the accident. He made a speech praising the Bahamas parliament as one of the oldest in the world and urging them to increase their trade with Canada and the West Indies while maintaining their friendship with the US (see Coventry Evening Telegraph, 6 January 1932). Dundas (1884-1956) was Colonial Secretary to the Bahamas from 1929 to 1934 and at various times served as acting-Governor. He was later Governor from 1937 to 1940. The Unknown War (published as The Eastern Front in Britain) was the final volume of The World Crisis, Churchill's history of the First World War. The first printing of the volume was in November 1931; this second printing (distinguished by the absence of Scribner's "A" on the copyright page) was published on 26 December 1931. Churchill's inscription of "January 1931" - he meant 1932 - is an error easily made in the early days of a new year. Provenance: the collection of Steve Forbes. Cohen A69.1(V).b. Martin Gilbert, The Churchill Documents, volume 12, 2009. Octavo. Original purple cloth, spine and front cover lettered in gilt. With dust jacket. Housed in custom black cloth slipcase. Half-tone photographic frontispiece, 7 similar plates, 10 maps of which one folding and in colour, maps and plans to text. Cloth a little rubbed, tape residue to endpapers; unclipped jacket a little chipped at extremities with slight staining. A very good copy in very good jacket.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom