So, imagine Winston Churchill telling you to donate books.  

We recently acquired an original Second World War poster featuring a lengthy August 1944 exhortation by Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill to donate reading material to the troops during the campaign to liberate Europe.  

This is the first and only copy of this poster we have encountered.  It measures 14.875 x 9.875 inches (37.78 x 25.08 cm) printed in red and black on white stock in a simulation of Churchill’s 10 Downing Street Stationery with an elaborate red border.  The quite salutary overall effect is that of a giant letter from Churchill.

The red title reads, all in capital letters, “THE PRIME MINISTER’S MESSAGE” above “10 Downing Street, Whitehall”.  The message, in four paragraphs, reads: 

“In 1942 on the eve of the great campaign for Africa, I sent an appeal to you all for books and periodicals for the Forces at home and abroad.  Now at the opening of the battle for the liberation of Europe I renew my appeal to you. 

As more of our men and women go overseas to the fighting fronts the demand for books, magazines and periodicals increases rapidly and we want your help to meet this need.  Every family can respond and you may be sure that any book you send will give pleasure and relaxation, not to one only but to many.  

To send your books to the Services is simplicity itself.  Just hand them in, unwrapped, unstamped and unaddressed to any Post Office.  And once having started, keep up the good work. Take your books and magazines to the Post Office as often as you can and so ensure a regular supply.  

You can also help by giving books and magazines to the collectors whenever there is a book drive in your district.  It is a good cause.  Let your response again be prompt and generous.” 

The message ends with Churchill’s facsimile signature “Winston S. Churchill” and a printed date of “August, 1944”.   Printed at the lower right margin of the poster the number “7,500” likely indicates the print run, “10/44” an apparent print date, and “Fosh & Cross, Ltd.” is presumably the printer.  

As both a bibliophile and Churchill admirer, it is pretty much impossible not to gush over this item. Here is the only Prime Minister to ever win the Nobel Prize in Literature trying to see to the literary needs of his soldiers while in the middle of leading his nation during the Second World War.

If you are looking for an elegant symbol of fundamental difference between representative democracy and Hitler’s Third Reich, this might be it.  While Churchill was appealing to his people to donate books, across the channel Hitler’s Germany was systematically burning them. Beginning in 1933, state sanctioned book burnings were organized, purging libraries and public and private collections of texts deemed “un-German”.  By the war’s end, the Nazi’s destroyed an estimated 100 million books.

As referenced in this poster’s message, this wasn’t the first time Churchill had asked for books for the troops.  In late 1942, during the campaign to liberate North Africa and shortly before Operation Torch, Churchill made an appeal to the British people for the donation of books. His message, printed in newspapers across the country, said: “If you had seen, as I have seen on my many visits to the Forces, and particularly in the Middle East, the need for something to read during the long hours off duty, and the pleasure and relief when that need is met, you would gladly look, and look again, through your bookshelves and give what you can.”  The people of Britain responded enthusiastically.  Newcastle reported donations that “filled 195 sacks and weighed close upon six tons.”

Anecdotally, we can assume that the books provided the intended comfort to soldiers on the front line.  A moving letter by a battle-wounded American Marine to Betty Smith related how her novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, affected him: “A surge of confidence has swept through me and I feel that maybe a fellow has a fighting chance in this world after all.  I’ll never be able to explain to you the gratitude and love that fill my heart in appreciation of what your book means to me.”

Few – if any – world leaders can claim Churchill’s deep, sustained, prolific intimacy with the printed word.  In 1950, when he was 75, Churchill irreverently quipped “…already in 1900… I could boast to have written as many books as Moses, and I have not stopped writing them since, except when momentarily interrupted by war…”  If anything, he was underselling his literary output.  In 1953 he won the Nobel Prize in Literature. By the time he died in 1965, Churchill had authored 58 books – not to mention 260 pamphlets, 840 articles, and roughly 9,000 pages of speeches.  

Moreover, few world leaders would have better understood the value of reading material for the soldier abroad.  Perhaps Churchill’s own soldiering youth was on his mind when he put his signature to this “Message” as wartime Prime Minister.  Nearly half a century earlier, as a young cavalry officer, “When he sailed for India Churchill embarked on that process of self-education which was to prove so serviceable a substitute for the opportunities which he had neglected or rejected in his formal education… he eagerly devoured the books that were sent to him.” (Gilbert, Vol. I, p.318-19)  It was as a young soldier abroad that Churchill learned not only to devour the printed word, but “discovered a great power of application which I did not think I possessed.” (Letter to his mother of 22 December 1897) Churchill wrote his first published book (The Story of the Malakand Field Force, 1898) while deployed abroad – a book about a campaign on the northwest frontier of colonial India in which he had fought and about which he had reported as a war correspondent.

Before the Second World War, at the height of appeasement and the nadir of his own popularity and political fortunes, Churchill spoke out against Nazi suppression of words and ideas. In his 16 October 1938 broadcast to the people of the United States, Churchill proclaimed:

            “It is this very conflict of the spiritual and moral ideas which gives the free countries a great part of their strength. You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police.  On all sides they are guarded by masses of armed men, cannons, aeroplanes, fortifications, and the like – they boast and vaunt themselves before the world, yet in their hearts is unspoken fear.  They are afraid of words and thoughts; words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home – all the more powerful because forbidden – terrify them.  A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.  They make frantic efforts to bar our thoughts and words; they are afraid of the workings of the human mind.”

How terribly fitting that, six years later, Churchill would be the British Prime Minister soliciting book donations for the very troops – his troops – fighting to liberate Europe from Nazi dominion.  

After he killed himself in his bunker on 30 April 1945, Hitler’s body was doused with petrol and unceremoniously set afire in the Reich Chancellery garden – not unlike the books he had defiled and destroyed.  

In accordance with the freedom he had labored so hard to defend, less than a year after this poster was issued, Churchill lost – and graciously conceded – the free and fair British General Election that followed Victory in Europe.  He occupied much of his time out of office writing the history of the war that he and his ideas had won.

Today – late but enthusiastic – I join the many who have written about Andrew Roberts’s new biography of Winston Churchill,Walking with Destiny.

I have now read all 982 pages with care and attention, most of them twice, many more than twice.  My takeaway is that Andrew Roberts has made an impressive fight.

Yes, a fight.  Because wrestling a figure like Winston Churchill into biographic encapsulation is a battle.  One made perhaps harder by the fact that so many have stepped into this proverbial ring before.

Which brings me to another metaphor – the elephant in the room, the venerable heavyweight champion of Churchill biography, Sir Martin Gilbert (1936-2015).  Over decades, Gilbert wrote what is not only the longest, but also arguably the most thoroughly researched, exhaustively documented, most ambitiously comprehensive biography in human history.  Gilbert substantially adhered to Randolph Churchill’s guiding maxim (who had borrowed it from Lockhart): “He shall be… his own biographer.”  This made – in both Gilbert’s eight-volume opus and the later, one-volume condensation – a laudably informative read, but perhaps one not always compelling as a narrative.

There is no want of scholarship underpinning Andrew Roberts’s own effort. Walking with Destiny delivers a steady current of salient and evocative facts.  Moreover, Roberts is conspicuously even-handed.   Indeed, sometimes Roberts is almost painfully fair in framing Churchill’s errors and deficiencies – of discernment, of impulse, and of character.

But these very compliments of Roberts’s new work might beg the question – why?  Why this fresh biographic work about a figure so exhaustively chronicled?

One can attempt to answer the question from a perspective of scholarship.  To be sure, the hitherto unmined diaries of both the Soviet Ambassador, Ivan Maisky, and King George VI are a noteworthy addition to the historical record.  They provide dimension and, in at least one case, alter some conventional perspective. Nonetheless, this new material alone would not seem to justify a wholly new thousand pages about Churchill.

So again, why?  

My own answer begins simply – because once I started reading this book, despite its mammoth size and my significant familiarity with the subject, I found it quite impossible to set aside.  Walking with Destiny showcases Roberts’s rare combination of manifest erudition and engaging narrative skill that only a precious few historians seem to reconcile and command.  Moreover, Roberts does not just compose history, but, like his subject, has a deep sense of it.  Of the unfolding and enfolding context, nuance, and import.  Of the constituent elements – events, decisions, time, and place. These he weaves without warping and shades without obtrusively coloring.

In short, Roberts tells Churchill’s story compellingly, fully, and evocatively in a way at once engagingly readable, substantively filling, and intellectually provoking.  That more than justifies the addition of a new biography to the canon.

To be substantive in my praise, I owe some specifics.

Speaking to Roberts’s scholarly pith, I was struck by the manner in which he repeatedly used a statistic to convey far more than bare fact.  On the disappointments and unrequited supplications of Churchill’s childhood: “…in the seven years from 1885 to 1892, Churchill wrote to his parents seventy-six times; they to him six times.” 

To understand the urgent compulsion of his early quest for glory, we are told how, seeking an opportunity for combat, Churchill “…took a train over 2,000 miles in five days of sweltering heat from Bangalore to Nowsherea…”

The dizzying arc of Churchill’s early ambition and burgeoning influence is illustrated thus: “In 1903 he made twenty-nine speeches (travelling over 2,200 miles), in 1904 thirty-eight (5,500 miles), in 1905 forty-four (over 3,700 miles), in 1906 fifty-nine (3,800 miles) and in 1907 (despite his East African trip) forty-two.  These speeches of often more than 5,000 words each…. He kept up this extraordinarily high level… even after the peak year of 1908, with sixty-nine speeches in 1909, seventy-seven in 1910 and sixty-five in 1911, traveling a total of 10,000 miles to deliver them.” 

Regarding the impactful and enduring presence of the Other Club in Churchill’s life: “Churchill was to attend more than 300 dinners of the Other Club, by far the largest number of meals he ever had in one place other than with his own family.”

The highly effective use of fact to limn Churchill’s character and core is not limited to statistics.

Roberts tells us that “Churchill habitually drove fast, routinely jumped traffic lights and occasionally went up on to the pavement when faced with traffic congestion.”  It is no great effort to make the metaphorical extension to many aspects of Churchill’s life.

But Roberts’s effort is more than clever application of fact and extrapolated metaphor.  Churchill was masterfully able to locate himself, his people, his place, and his time in the tributaries and currents of history.  Roberts is similarly able to tease and trace the many convergences threading Churchill’s life.  Sometimes this is fairly straightforward; Roberts highlights that it was Churchill’s loss in his first bid for Parliament that left him free to go to South Africa, where he won the fame that catapulted him to prominence.  Sometimes the connections are more subtle, but no less vital; Roberts draws the connection between Churchill’s early, formative experience with fanaticism in the Victorian colonial conflicts of sub-Saharan Africa to Churchill’s instinctive, recoiling identification of similar fanaticism in Nazi Germany decades later.  Likewise, rather than simply cataloguing Churchill’s more obstinate decisions – both good and bad – Roberts illuminates these decisions as a path both consonant with and illuminating Churchill’s guiding principles, beliefs, and impulses.

Churchill’s death came half a decade before my birth, so I am without any living memory of him.  I’m interested in the man because he is interesting.  And perfection is not interesting.  I find Churchill engaging for his humanity and loathe hagiography which, to my reckoning, diminishes both the reality and relevance of Churchill’s remarkable life and character.

Among Roberts’s gifts to readers is not only unsqueamish disclosure of Churchill’s errors of judgement, but also acknowledgement of where Churchill’s core notions deviate from modern sensibilities.  But this is done without a partisan agenda.  Roberts neither selectively edits statements and events to demonize Churchill, nor apologizes for when Churchill was boorish or wrong.  Rather, Roberts deftly contextualizes, revealing flaws and deficiencies in a manner that better suits frank understanding than retroactive judgement.  

Roberts’s discussion of Churchill’s views on women’s suffrage is a case in point. The portrayal of Churchill’s views and political postures was honest enough to make me wince.  But, most illuminating, there is a particular incident related when Churchill, on the cusp of adopting a more progressive position, instead literally orates himself into a reactionary retreat.  It is painful.  It is certainly no “finest hour”.  But it is fascinating, informative, and of a piece that Churchill’s oratory could sway not just the mind and will of others, but his own as well.   

In his Conclusion, Roberts spends nearly an entire page cataloging “many times when Churchill’s judgement could legitimately be called into question”.  The list is excruciating to read.  And it is justly set upon the scales.  Yet such is the nature of Roberts’s balanced presentations that this inventory of fault and failure can be acknowledged, absorbed, and carefully weighed.   

As can Roberts’s own book.  To be sure, Walking with Destiny is not a flawless effort.  It was a fight, and some of the knuckled thrusts and bumps are hard to obscure. To the point is Roberts’s intriguing decision to remain fairly even-handed in the massive, 951-page sweep of the narrative while saving the weighty Conclusion (pages 965-982) for more partial contextualization.  “Conclusion” understates; this is a lengthy, substantive, referential essay that, frankly, feels of sufficient weight to stand and be read on its own, rather than simply mortar and tassel the book.

But even this – though far from seamless – worked very well for me as a reader. In retrospect, it afforded a salutary digestive exercise – opportunity for a lengthy, provoking, warts-and-all regard for the sweep of Churchill’s life before having it more conspicuously hued and appraised.  Roberts’s Conclusion proved to be the literary equivalent of a strong tonic, brisk walk, and settling reflection after a taxingly large, rich, and volubly companioned repast.  

Churchill once wrote that “Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy, then an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then it becomes a tyrant and, in the last stage, just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.” Roberts might identify.  There is that sense here that Roberts’s undertaking was no gentle affair, but more of a Churchillian struggle in its intellectual and narrative demands and exertions.  This seems fitting to the life Andrew Roberts has so ably framed and chronicled.

“Churchill Book Collector” implies a certain staple in our inventory.  Namely books.  But many of you know that there is more to our inventory than merely books – including ephemera, correspondence, and… photographs.

Over the past year, we have acquired a treasure trove of roughly 300 original press photographs of Winston Churchill, spanning the latter half of Churchill’s life, from the 1920s through 1964. In this blog post we give a brief history of these remarkable repositories of history and a preview of our offerings to come.

Through this remarkable collection of photographs we glimpse the vigorous ambitions of the young Cabinet minister, the isolation of his wilderness years, his leadership during the war years, his sojourn as leader of the opposition, his valedictory second premiership, and his final decade, when Churchill passed “into a living national memorial” of the time he had lived and the Nation, Empire, and free world he had served. 

We have just listed the first tranche of 60 of these 300 photographs.  These 60 original press photographs span Churchill’s resignation from his second and final premiership in April 1955 to his death in January 1965.

Churchill’s long career coincided with the evolution and ascendance of photojournalism. He witnessed its early years, remarking “It is the misfortune of a good many Members to encounter in our daily walks an increasing number of persons armed with cameras to take pictures for the illustrated Press which is so rapidly developing.” (letter of 26 June 1911 to Alfred Lyttelton) And during the war years he was a frequent subject of photojournalism’s golden age – often with noteworthy and occasionally with truly iconic results. 

Soon after the development of photography in the mid 19^th century, newspapers began to look for ways to supplement the written word with this new technology. For decades the only means of publication was through highly labor-intensive wood engravings reproduced by hand. In March 1880 – just half a decade after Churchill’s birth –  The Daily Graphic of New York became the first paper to publish a halftone reproduction of a photograph. The development of this new photochemical reproduction process allowed for papers to begin to easily and quickly publish photographs. 

These newly illustrated newspapers were an immediate success with the public, and a new profession, the photojournalist, was born. Only the largest newspapers had the resources necessary for in-house photographers, so news agencies were quickly established to meet the demand. Naturally, there was great incentive for each news agency to be the first to have available a photograph of a major event. All modes of transportation – including carrier pigeons – were used to speedily transport negatives to the agency bureaus where they were developed out and supplied to papers. This intense competition led to the Associated Press’s development of the most important photojournalistic inventions since the halftone, the Wirephoto.

Developed in 1921, AP’s Wirephoto allowed for the first “instantaneous” transmission of visual images. The technology involved scanning photographic images and translating the image density into audio tones which could then be transmitted over dedicated phone lines. The audio transmission could then be received by special equipment that would translate the signal back into light, exposing a silver gelatin photographic support that could be processed in the dark room. Until 1954 – the year before Churchill would relinquish the premiership for the second and final time – nearly all press photos were printed using this process.   

As newspapers began to collect photographs from staff photographers, news agencies, and third-party photographers expansive archives, called “photo morgues”, were established. Within these archives physical copies of all photographs published or deemed useful for future use were filed away. These archives often grew to hold more than a million images. Most newspapers’ filing processes included stamping the verso of each image with the copyright holder, publication notes, typed captions (often supplied by news agencies), reproduction notes, and clippings of the image’s appearance in print. During wartime censor information was occasionally also included. As a result, photo morgues serve as vast, rich archives of primary historical sources.

In addition to their historical importance, photo editing techniques of the early 20^thcentury often make these unique and aesthetically fascinating visual objects. Before Photoshop made such edits possible at the click of a button, newspapers’ photo departments would often take brush, paint, pencil, and marker to the surface of photographs. These additions ranged from the mere adjustment to the total re-contextualization of a photo. 

With the addition of paint these photographs become not only repositories of historical memory and technological artifacts but also striking pieces of vernacular art.  And as the photographs were archived for reference and potential re-use, extensive notes were often made to the versos, including stamps and notations of provenance and captions.

In recent decades, as newspapers declined and publications increasingly turned to digital production, the contents of photo morgues have been made available for acquisition by libraries, archives, museums, and, occasionally, private parties such as Churchill Book Collector. 

The photographs we will offer show a compelling slice of 20^th century newspaper press photography through the prism of an individual who was integral to much of that century’s momentous history. The photographs come from a variety of sources, from standard news agencies to direct from the studios of noted photographers. The hand-applied edits range from mere contrast adjustments to the complete erasure of figures. 

One remarkable photo, of Churchill and Attlee’s faces pasted onto the bodies of two sparring boxers, reminds us that photos mischieviously edited for humor have existed for longer than we might assume. 

In this collection of press photographs, we see Churchill as a family man, his arm around Clementine in the midst of the Battle of Britain, or brushing the cheek of his grandchild. We see Churchill as a military leader, inspecting troops and firing guns.

We see Churchill the statesman with world leaders both expected (George VI and FDR) and more unexpected (Nixon and a Nazi leader). 

We see Churchill the orator as he gives speeches and radio broadcasts.  

And in the photos of Churchill’s final years we are reminded of the inescapable and inexorable toll of physical mortality, which disregards the longevity of words or deeds. 

Which brings us full circle to the notion of why a bookseller trades in photographs. 

As we have written before, published work has limitations inherent to the very acts of drafting and editing, of expert input, careful consideration, and diligent preparation.  Published words, however luminous and illuminating, can find themselves separated from the vitality and immediacy of a moment or perspective.

Photographs are something different.  More ephemeral, more candid, more distinctly in and of the moment.  Able to impart a vital sense of things that no acclaimed book or carefully crafted speech – however Churchillian in mastery – can quite capture.  So even though Churchill left us a wealth of published words, there is more yet to see and to feel from photographs.

At present we plan to release these images for sale in groupings, in roughly reverse chronological order, beginning with the first 60 we have just listed spanning Churchill’s final decade.  We are likely to offer the final 100 or so in a dedicated catalogue released concurrent with the 36^thAnnual Churchill Conference, to be held in Washington, D.C. 29-31 October 2019.We look forward to sharing with you the incredible wealth of history and photography contained within this archive of original press photographs of Winston. S. Churchill.

Click HERE to browse our entire listed inventory of photographs.

We recently acquired a remarkable association copy of the first edition of Winston Churchill’s first book, The Story of the Malakand Field Force.  This copy was owned by the bereaved family of Lieutenant-Colonel James Loughnan O’Bryen, whose death in action Churchill eloquently mourns within its pages. The book, noteworthy on its own merits for condition alone, not only has the association to O’Bryen’s family, but also came to us accompanied by a small archive including an original drawing of the Malakand Pass and five contemporary photographs depicting Colonel O’Bryen, his 30^th Punjabi Regiment, and what appears to be a native militia.

At pages 245-7 of his first published book, Churchill wrote:

Meanwhile the 31st Punjaub Infantry, who had advanced under Colonel O’Bryen on the right, were exposed to a severe fire from a rocky ridge on their flank. Their attack was directed against a great mass of boulders, some of them of enormous size, which were tenaciously held by the enemy. The fighting soon became close. The two advanced companies were engaged at a distance of under 100 yards. Besides this the cross fire from their right flank added to their difficulties. In such a position the presence of Colonel O’Bryen was invaluable. Moving swiftly from point to point, he directed the fire and animated the spirit of the men, who were devoted to him. It was not long before the enemy’s marksmen began to take aim at this prominent figure. But for a considerable period, although bullets struck the ground everywhere around him, he remained unhurt. At last, however, he was shot through the body, and carried mortally wounded from the action.

I pause to consider for a moment the conditions, and circumstances, by which the pursuit of a military career differs from all others. In political life, in art, in engineering, the man with talents who behaves with wisdom may steadily improve his position in the world. If he makes no mistakes he will probably achieve success. But the soldier is more dependent upon external influences. The only way he can hope to rise above the others, is by risking his life in frequent campaigns. All his fortunes, whatever they may be, all his position and weight in the world, all his accumulated capital, as it were, must be staked afresh each time he goes into action. He may have seen twenty engagements, and be covered with decorations and medals. He may be marked as a rising soldier. And yet each time he comes under fire his chances of being killed are as great as, and perhaps greater than, those of the youngest subaltern, whose luck is fresh. The statesman, who has put his power to the test, and made a great miscalculation, may yet retrieve his fortunes. But the indiscriminating bullet settles everything. As the poet somewhat grimly has it:—

Stone-dead hath no better.

Colonel O’Bryen had been specially selected, while still a young man, for the command of a battalion. He had made several campaigns. Already he had passed through the drudgery of the lower ranks of the service, and all the bigger prizes of the military profession appeared in view: and though the death in action of a colonel at the head of his regiment is as fine an end as a soldier can desire, it is mournful to record the abrupt termination of an honourable career at a point when it might have been of much value to the State. 

Battlefield sentiment was not an abstract concept to Churchill. A combination of youthful exuberance, political ambition, sense of destiny, and need to prove his mettle – we leave to others the task of determining the exact proportions of each – put Churchill decisively in harm’s way on the same 1897 battlefields of the colonial northwest Indian frontier.  The fate of those, like O’Bryen, who faced the same risks on the same battlefields impressed upon Churchill the potentially dire cost of this particular type of ambition. 

Churchill’s memorial to O’Bryen is remarkable in several respects.  Like Thucydides long before him and many others writing in the intervening millennia, Churchill clearly regards the role of chance in warfare. Moreover, Churchill shows a deep respect for those who risk all in battle.  But below the eloquent philosophy and homage are manifest aspects of the self-focused, very young man Churchill was.  Clearly on display is the driving force of his as-yet unrealized political ambition – even in this memorial, Churchill cannot resist articulating the metaphor of “The statesman, who has put his power to the test, and made a great miscalculation” but “may yet retrieve his fortunes.”  The metaphor would, of course, prove particularly prophetic for Churchill… Also on display is the nascent, apparently instinctive Churchillian gift for nobly framing events and setting them in greater context.  But while Churchill’s talents and ambition are both clearly on display, so too are the limitations of his youth and experience.  The conclusion – “…it is mournful to record the abrupt termination of an honourable career at a point when it might have been of much value to the State.” – cannot help but strike this reader as thuddingly detached and unsympathetic.  O’Bryen left behind not only his “honourable career” and potential use to the State, but also a wife, a daughter, and the full measure of his own perspectives and passions.  Before winning the Nobel Prize in Literature more than half a century later “for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.“, Churchill would risk, lose, achieve, and suffer much – and in the process learn to do better.

Churchill’s words about the unfortunate Lt. Colonel O’Bryen apparently reached his surviving wife and daughter.   The sole previous ownership mark in this copy is three lines, inked on the half title: “O’Bryen | 29 Ellerker Gardens | Richmond-Surrey”.  The ownership mark was almost certainly made by O’Bryen’s wife or daughter; the only other marks in the book are a folded upper corner at the p.245-6 leaf and faint pencil lines in the margins beside text giving Churchill’s account of O’Bryen’s death. The book is a beautifully clean copy of the first edition, only printing, its preservation thus substantiating the notion that it was a family memento of significance.  Confirming that supposition are the original drawing and five photographs of O’Bryen and his 30^th Punjabi Regiment that accompanied this book.

An unsigned drawing depicting “Malakand Pass” is in black ink on a 4.5 x 7 inch piece of laid paper, folded once and spotted. The lower left of the drawing has what are presumably triangular representations of tents captioned “Dargai Camp”.  At the lower right, the drawing is captioned “Dotted line shows Malakand Pass”.  (The dotted line in question is at the right portion of the drawing 1.5 inches above the caption.)  Though we cannot confirm the identity of the drawing’s creator, it is certainly contemporary and has kept company all this time with the other personal effects of O’Bryen.

The five photographs are decisively those of Lt. Colonel O’Bryen, two of them depicting him and two of them the men of the regiments in which O’Bryen served.  There is a silver gelatin group portrait of the 30^th Punjabi Infantry in uniform.  This is a very clean, high contrast image measuring 4.75 x 6.75 inches with a small piece missing from the lower left blank margin.  A penciled caption at the bottom of the photograph reads: “30^th PUNJABI INFANTRY”.

Another, larger silver gelatin group portrait of the 30^th Punjabi Infantry in uniform set against a different background. Though this group of soldiers is appreciably larger, some of the figures are recognizably the same, as are the uniforms. This photograph measures 6.5 x 8.125 inches is pencil captioned on the verso: “30^th PUNJABI INFANTRY”.

The sole non-military silver gelatin photograph, measuring 6.25 x 8.125 inches, is a study in Victorian colonial casual archetype. Colonel O’Bryen in a suit is sprawling on porch stairs, hand in pocket, double-breasted waistcoat exposed, legs crossed, with a child leaning against him and two women in voluminous skirts seated in chairs on the porch above him to the left and right.   The photo is clean, though with irregular breaks to the brittle paper along the top and left edges, a triangular loss at the lower left corner, and a short, closed tear at the bottom edge.  

An 8.5 x 11.25 silver gelatin portrait of un-uniformed men and boys, some of the men visibly armed, is captioned in pencil “Central Group Young [illegible]”.  The final word, which we cannot definitively decipher, could plausibly be “Militia”.  This clean, high contrast image is affixed to a mount at the corners and has irregular breaks to the brittle paper along the bottom edge, not affecting the figures depicted therein.  This photograph is ink-stamped on the verso: “Gillmore T Carte | Dalhousie, Punjaub | photographer”.

A large, 9.25 x 11.25 inch albumen group portrait is arguably the standout piece of the collection, depicting four rows of native soldiers with their British officers intermixed, Colonel O’Bryen prominent among them.  The photograph is captioned in pencil at the bottom: “COL OBRYEN WHITE OFFICER 2 ROW THIRD FROM LEFT / 5^th AND 30^TH PUNJABI INFANTRY”.  The lower right is signed in the print “F. Winter”.  Winter was a photographer in Muree, Punjab.

Lieutenant-Colonel James Loughnan O’Bryen was born in Delhi, India on 8 January 1854.  His father was a decorated Colonel with the Indian Staff Corps who served in the First Anglo-Sikh War of 1845-6.  James was evidently sent to England for his education as he was recorded in the 1871 UK census as a 17-year-old scholar in a London household and there is evidence that he attended the Downside school in Somerset.  His service papers in the National Archive indicate that he first entered into the Army at “20 1/12” years with the 11^th Infantry Regiment in 1874 (the year Churchill was born) before joining the Indian Staff Corps in 1876.  In 1879 he served during the Afghan War with the Kandahar and Khyber Field Forces.  He also served in the Third Anglo-Burmese War, General Lockharts’s expedition against the Isazai tribes, and in the Chitral expedition.  In 1894 O’Bryen obtained his majority with the Indian Staff Corps and was placed second in command of the 30^th Punjabis before he was appointed to command of the 31^st Punjab Regiment of the Bengal Infantry on 5 August 1897.  Less than two months later he was killed in action.  

O’Bryen was survived by his wife and one daughter, to whom this book and images ostensibly belonged.  After his death, O’Bryen’s body was recovered and moved to Peshawar, where he was buried with full honors and commemorated with a simple plaque reading: “In memory of Lieutenant Colonel James Loughnan O’Bryen, Commandant 31^st PI who was killed in action at the head of his Regiment at Agrah in the Mamund Valley, Bajaur on 30^th September 1897. Aged 43 years.  Deeply regretted by his brother officers by whom this tablet is erected.”

Churchill’s own story would be written quite differently. And, beginning with this book, substantially written by his own hand.

When this book was written and published, Churchill was a young cavalry officer still serving in India. While he had successfully applied his pen as a war correspondent – indeed the book is based on his dispatches to the Daily Telegraph and the Pioneer Mail – this was his first book-length work. The young Churchill was motivated by a combination of pique and ambition. He was vexed that his Daily Telegraph columns were to be published unsigned. On 25 October 1897 Churchill wrote to his mother: “…I had written them with the design… of bringing my personality before the electorate.” Two weeks later, his resolve to write a book firming, Churchill again wrote to his mother: “…It is a great undertaking but if carried out will yield substantial results in every way, financially, politically, and even, though do I care a damn, militarily.” Having invested his ambition in this first book, he clearly labored over it: “I have discovered a great power of application which I did not think I possessed. For two months I have worked not less than five hours a day.” The finished manuscript was sent to his mother on the last day of 1897 and published on 14 March of 1898. 

Publication was arranged by Churchill’s uncle while the author was still in India, resulting in numerous spelling and detail errors. Churchill was incensed by the errors and acted with haste to address them. Hence later states of the first edition bear errata slips. Home Issue copies also bear a 32-page Longmans, Green catalogue bound in at the back, which is dated either “12/97” or “3/98” at the foot of page 32. With only a little more than 1,900 copies bound, this first edition of Churchill’s first book is both desirable and elusive.  The O’Bryen copy is an early second state, featuring the tipped-in errata slip and a rear catalogue dated “12/97”.  

Apart from being an association copy, it is noteworthy for condition alone, approaching near fine.  The publisher’s green cloth binding remains square, tight, clean, and beautifully bright with no discernible color shift between the spine and covers.  We note only trivial wear to the hinges and corners and some minor wrinkling at the spine ends.  The gilt on both front cover and spine remains vividly bright.  

The contents are equally and notably clean for the edition, atypically bright.  Some incidental spotting is confined to the page edges, which are otherwise clean with only mild age-toning.  All maps are intact, including the folding maps at pages 1 and 146, as is the frontispiece and tissue guard.  The original black endpapers are present and intact, with none of the typical cracking or splitting.  While the mull is visible in the gutter following the endpapers and half title, this is strictly a cosmetic issue and in no way affects binding integrity.

Today we write about two exciting recent discoveries.

You’ve probably heard us praise Churchill’s bibliographer, Ron Cohen. That’s because Ron literally wrote the book on Churchill’s published works.  Nearly 25 years of exhaustive research went into his indispensable three-volume, 2,183-page Bibliography of the Writings of Sir Winston Churchill.  No less an authority than Sir Martin Gilbert effusively praised Ron’s work, calling it:  “…a high point – and surely a peak – of Churchill bibliographic research… adding not only to the bibliographer’s art, but to knowledge of Winston Churchill himself.” Published in 2006, Ron’s Bibliography seeks to detail every single edition, issue, state, printing, and variant of every printed work authored by, or with a contribution from, Winston S. Churchill.  It’s unequivocally the most thorough bibliography – for any author – that we work with in the bookselling trade.

…But…

Even Ron did not see it all.  In recent years, we have vexed poor Ron by sending him emendations to the Bibliography.  We wrote about a few of our discoveries in a blog post a year ago called The Hunt.

Recently, we made two more discoveries.  And they’re really cool.

The first discovery is a previously unrecorded dust jacket variant for the U.S. first edition, first printing of the first volume of The World Crisis (1923).  The second discovery is a previously unrecorded binding variant for the first edition, first printing of Churchill’s Thoughts and Adventures (1932).

The World Crisis: 1911-1914
 
The World Crisis – Churchill’s history of the First World War – was published in six volumes between 1923 and 1931.  The first volume, 1911-1914, covered the first four years Churchill spent as First Lord of the Admiralty, as well as the beginning of the war.  April 1923 publication of the U.S. edition by Charles Scribner’s Sons preceded its British counterpart (Thornton Butterworth Ltd.), making the U.S. the true first edition.  

The 5,000 first printing copies of the first volume of The World Crisis continued to be bound and issued by Scribner’s throughout 1924 (well after the October 1923 publication of the second volume, 1915), with a total of four known variations to the title page and the binding.  This much was already known.  What we didn’t know is that there were first printing variations of the dust jacket as well…

We know of only three surviving first printing, first issue dust jackets for the Scribner’s 1911-1914 volume (two of them with significant loss).  They look like this.

But no bibliographer has ever recorded and we have never seen this later issue first printing dust jacket.  As you can see from the images, these first printing jackets are quite different.

In many ways, the changes to the second issue jacket are a major aesthetic and contextual improvement, more concretely connecting the book beneath to both its title and to its place in The World Crisis as a series. The spine of the second issue jacket adds “1911-1914” below “The World Crisis”, clarifying that this is the first volume.  The front face also adds “1911-1914” and the text consists of six reviews.  The rear face contains reviews of the second volume, 1915, which was published in October 1923. 

The front flap features the same “$6.50” price as the first issue jacket, but adds a striking image of Churchill over excerpts from the Saturday Review.  The rear flap – blank on the first issue jacket – adds a blurb for the 1915 volume. 

Dust jackets of later printings – the 1928 second printing and the 1930 third and final printing – differ substantially, respectively advertising the 1916-1918 volumes (published 1927) and The Aftermath (published 1929). 

This jacket came to us wrapped around a gorgeously bright first edition, first printing binding variant that, as testified by condition, had clearly spent life jacketed.  While we can never be sure of singularity, it’s certainly plausible that this is the sole surviving example of this jacket.  

Please find another and prove us wrong!

In the meantime, this noteworthy jacket anchors a unique, fully jacketed set of The World Crisis listed HERE.

Thoughts and Adventures

The sixth and final volume of The World Crisis was published in 1931.  The next year, Churchill published something quite different – a stand-alone volume titled (in the UK) Thoughts and Adventures.

Which brings us to our second recent find. This one a variant binding, not a variant dust jacket.

Thoughts and Adventures is Churchill’s collection of 23 engaging essays on an incredibly wide variety of subjects was first published in 1932. It has been called “The broadest range of Churchill’s thought between two hard covers” and reflects the two qualities that so characterize Churchill’s life – a remarkable breadth of both mind and life experience. From the original front flap blurb: “Whether he is dealing with personal reminiscences, or telling us his views on any subject under the sun, Mr. Churchill stamps the page with his own vivid personality.” In a 31 May 1932 letter to his publisher about the book, Churchill characterized it thus: “…although there is no one single theme, it has some of the best things in it I have ever written.”

There were a total of four printings of the first edition (all in November & December 1932).  Unique to the first edition was a coarse-grained, khaki-colored cloth characterized by Ron Cohen as “Moderate olive brown embossed calico-texture cloth.”  Later first printings and all three subsequent printings were issued in a significantly darker “dark greyish green” cloth with a “dotted-line grain”.

What we recently discovered, beneath a gorgeous first printing dust jacket, is an entirely different original publisher’s binding.   

This previously unrecorded binding variant is a distinctly lighter, pale green/olive cloth in a tighter weave than the khaki cloth unique to the first printing.  

The differences between all three bindings are readily apparent.

There’s no question that pale green is the original cloth binding color.  This copy was discovered beneath a magnificent first printing dust jacket.  Despite a stain on the front cover – ostensibly from incidental moisture exposure or handling – the binding is bright and clean as only a jacketed copy can be.  The color is unequivocally original; we note absolutely no color difference between the spine, covers, and the cloth turn-ins bordering the pastedowns.  

We’ve never seen or heard of another bound thus. The logical speculation is that this cloth was used sparingly and very early in the first printing binding process, since it’s known that, at some point during the first printing, the khaki cloth yielded to the darker green, dotted-line grain cloth.  

This copy has just been listed for sale by us HERE.

The lesson of both of these finds is that even after so many years and such an impressively exhaustive bibliography, there are still discoveries to make.  

We’ll keep looking.  And we’ll keep sharing with what we find!

Q:        What features the signatures of 167 distinguished individuals, including Nobel prize winners, Pulitzer prize winners, prime ministers, presidents, a surfeit of sirs and other titular honorifics, generals, admirals, air marshals, sculptors, painters, novelists, cartoonists, historians, journalists, poets, composers, and architects?

A:         The 40 items in our new Extra Ink! Catalogue.

The items in which you will find these signatures are nearly as diverse as the signers.  This catalogue includes books, correspondence, and ephemera, the latter ranging from dinner menus to contract negotiations to encaenia programmes.

The commonality among the diverse items in our new catalogue is the “extra ink” – the indelible mark of a human hand beyond what was merely printed or typed.

Each item features at least one autograph signature, sometimes more than just one signature, and often more than just a signature – ranging from inscriptions to hand-corrections to holograph letters.

All 40 items are new to our inventory.  They span the breadth of the twentieth century, with publication dates from 1899 to 2007.  Given our specialty, of course Winston S. Churchill figures prominently, but he is in good company, both myriad and manifold.

Cheers and happy browsing!

English is a language rich in vocabulary, some words having almost peculiar specificity.  Among the most peculiar and specific known to this bookseller is “Encaenia”.

Perhaps you know the word.  I confess that “Encaenia” did not join my own vocabulary until this year.  Apropos, my Oxford English Dictionary tells me that it is “The annual commemoration of founders and benefactors at Oxford University”.

Among the 40 items in our forthcoming catalogue is a collection of Oxford Encaenia program(me)s rendered unique by the signatures of 53 distinguished honorees. The signatures include Prime Ministers Winston Churchill, Neville Chamberlain, and Harold Macmillan, President Harry S. Truman, three Nobel Prize winners, House Speakers and Party Leaders, scholars and war heroes, poets and architects, and such quintessentially British figures as the first Director-General of the BBC, the editor of Punch, and the designer of the London’s iconic red phone booth.

These signatures were collected by Lewis Frewer, an Oxford autograph collector whose meticulously catalogued collection of personally acquired signatures of statesmen, sportsmen, and figures of the stage and screen totaled over 2,000 items. This portion of his collection includes 12 signed programs and 35 additional items chiefly comprising letters attesting to the provenance for many of the signatures.

As you might expect, the condition of the items varies.  Programs handled by a limited number of people, such as those signed by the Churchills and Truman, are in very good condition, bright and clean with minimal wear to the extremities. Others, such as the 22 June 1932 program, were clearly been sent back and forth through the mail in the process of collecting multiple signatures, and hence bear fold lines, attempted repairs, tears, and visible wear.

The Encaenia ceremony at Oxford has existed since the 16^thcentury as a means of conferring honor upon, and obtaining favor from, the powerful and influential in the form of honorary degrees. This means of using honorary degrees to create alliances extended from the academic realm to the British Government by the 1930s when the Foreign Office reportedly came to regard the honor as a diplomatic tool and began to directly intervene in the selection of honorees.  Reflecting this practice, in this collection are the signatures – all collected in the years leading up to WWII – of foreign dignitaries such as Austrian Minister Baron Georg Franckenstein, French Prime Minister Édouard Herriot, and Belgian diplomat H. E. Baron de Cartier. This level of political calculation was interestingly juxtaposed with the infamous 1933 Oxford Union resolution stating that “this house will under no circumstances fight for its King and Country”, a resolution denounced by Winston Churchill as an “abject, squalid, shameless avowal”.

The “King and Country” resolution aside, in the first half of the 20^thcentury, the honorary degrees awarded largely reflected the contributions of British and Allied leaders in the two World Wars, with nearly half of the honorees in 1946 being military figures. Military heroes present here include Admiral of the Fleet Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope, who was ranked “with the greatest of British admirals”, Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding, who was credited with a crucial role in winning the Battle of Britain, Lieutenant General Lord Bernard Freyberg, whose lengthy military career which spanned beach landings at Gallipoli to the Battle of Greece prompted Churchill to nickname him “the Salamander” for his ability to pass unharmed through the fire, and Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, the chief military advisor to Churchill.

Of course, the figure central to Allied victory, Winston S. Churchill, is also present. However, the honor of Doctor of Civil Law was not placed on the wartime Prime Minister but on his wife, Clementine, whose signature nevertheless appears below her lauded husband and who is referred to in the program as only “Mrs. Churchill”.

President Harry S. Truman’s inclusion in the 1956 Encaenia was fraught with political controversies. In 1952 Oxford honored Dean Acheson, the US Secretary of State under Truman. Ostensibly, this was a politically safe pick.  However, 1952 was an election year, one tainted with anti-communist Cold War rhetoric.  After Senator Joseph McCarthy attacked Dean Acheson as soft on communism, Oxford’s decision seemed a miscalculation and was perceived by some as a gesture of support for the foreign policies of the Democratic Party. Two years later Oxford’s Vice-Chancellor proposed Truman’s nomination to Foreign Secretary Antony Eden, whose response was an explicit “no” as the US midterm elections were approaching and the nomination of another prominent Democrat might lend the appearance of intervention. There was additionally some discomfort at awarding an honorary degree to the individual who had given the order for the first atomic bomb to be dropped.

Immediately after the elections Truman’s name was resubmitted for 1955 and approved.  However, Truman would not be able to attend the ceremony until the following year. This again made more trouble for the Foreign Office, as 1956 was an election year, creating a conflict between the embarrassment of delaying the former President’s honor and the consequences of perceived favoritism in American elections. The solution was to include Truman in the 1956 ceremony while making it explicit that he was a holdover from the previous year. Truman’s inscription, that “it is a very great honor”, might be regarded as gracefully acknowledging the political maneuvering required to include him in the Encaenia.

Below you’ll find a full list of Encaenia and signatures, as well as additional images.

Cheers!

Churchill Book Collector

_______________________________________________________________________

Our collection of Encaenia and the signatures therein include the following:

Convocation, Conferment of Honorary Degrees, October 25, 1945

Field Marshal the Lord Alanbrooke

Admiral of the Fleet Sir Jack Tovey

Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Tedder

Alexander Hore-Ruthven, First Earl of Gowrie

Unknown

English Versions of Encaenia Addresses, June 26, 1946

Admiral of the Fleet Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope

Admiral of the Fleet Sir James Somerville

Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding

Encaenia, June 22, 1932

the Earl of Athalone, Governor General South Africa and of Canada

Sir Arthur Salter, politician

E. Baron de Cartier, Belgian diplomat

Sir John Russell, British Ambassador

George Earl Buckle, writer, editor of the Times

Walter Wilson Greg, Shakespeare scholar

Encaenia, June 21, 1933

Front Cover:

Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister

Sir John Maitland Salmond, Marshal of the Royal Air Force

Laurence Binyon, English poet

Sir Owen Seaman, editor of Punch

Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, architect, designer of the red phone box

Sir Warren Fisher, Head of the Home Civil Service

Frederick Craufurd Goodenough, chairman of Barclays Bank

Rear cover:

Viscount Buckmaster, Lord Chancellor

John Scott Haldane, physiologist

Encaenia, June 20, 1934

Cover:

Arnold Bax, composer

Colonel Sir Maurice Paschal Alers Hankey, Cabinet Secretary

Edward Stanley, the 19^thEarl of Derby

Admiral Sir Ernle Chatfield

Interior:

The Archbishop of York, William Ebor

Captain Edward Algernon Fitzroy, M.P., Speaker of the House of Commons

Lord Tyrrell of Avon

Walter Runciman, M.P., President of the Board of Trade

Arthur Henderson, M.P., Nobel Peace Prize 1934

Sir Samuel John Gurney Hoare, Secretary of State for Air

Sir George Francis Hill, director of the British Museum

Sir Edwin L. Lutyens, British architect

Sir Henry Alexander Miers, mineralogist

John Buchan, Governor General of Canada, author of The Thirty-Nine Steps

John William Mackail, writer

Archibald Vivian Hill, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1922

Encaenia, June 26, 1935

Baron Georg Franckenstein, Austrian Minister to the Court of St. James

Albert Frederick Pollard, Tudor historian

Herbert Samuel, Home Secretary, Leader of the Liberal Party

Édouard Herriot, Prime Minister of France

Sir Charles Edward Mallet, historian, Financial Secretary to the War Office

Viscount Bledisloe of Sydney, Gevernor-General of New Zealand

Sir John Charles Walsham Reith, First Director-General of the BBC

Speeches by the Public Orator, October 25, 1945

Lt. Gen. Sir Bernard Freyberg, Victoria Cross, dubbed by Churchill “the Salamander”

Encaenia, June 26, 1946

Winston S. Churchill

Clementine Churchill

English Versions of Encaenia Addresses, June 26, 1946

Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, First Sea Lord, Governor-General of India

Encaenia, June 20, 1956

Harry S. Truman “It is a very great honor. Harry Truman”

Admission and Installation of the Chancellor, April 30, 1960

Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister

Encaenia, June 27, 1984

Group Captain Leonard Cheshire (with tipped-in letter), Victoria Cross, philanthropist

Imagine a book so rich in signatures that Winston Churchill’s autograph is barely of note.

Q:        What would it take to secure the signatures of 85 leading lights in British literature and the arts, as well as four prime ministers, in a single volume?

A:         It took a World War and a future King of England.

The First World War is often eclipsed by the conflagrations of the latter part of the twentieth century, notably the Second World War and Cold War.  But it was the First World War that truly stunned civilization, ushering an age of inconceivable carnage and industrialized brutality.  When war came in August 1914, prevailing sentiment held that the conflict would be decisive and short.  “You will be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees,” Kaiser Wilhelm assured his troops leaving for the front.  More than four extraordinarily bloody years followed, lasting until the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918.  In his own history of WWI, Winston Churchill wrote: “Overwhelming populations, unlimited resources, measureless sacrifice… could not prevail for fifty months…”

The British Empire alone suffered more than 900,000 dead and two million wounded.  At the end of WWI, the pension for a totally disabled man was only 30 shillings a week and no claim could be made seven years after discharge.  In May 1921 several ex-servicemen’s organizations were amalgamated to form the Royal British Legion.  Thereafter, the Legion actively involved itself with employment and pensions for both able and disabled ex-servicemen or their dependents.

The Legion Book was commissioned by the Legion’s patron, H.R.H. The Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII and, after abdication, the Duke of Windsor).  Sale proceeds were dedicated to the Legion.  The dozens of contributing artists and writers were among the most talented British subjects in their fields, including Winston Churchill, Rudyard Kipling, P.G. Wodehouse, Aldous Huxley, Vita Sackville-West, G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, Augustus John, Eric Kennington, and John Nash. The book was edited by James Humphrey Cotton Minchin (1894-1966), a WWI veteran of the Cameronians and the Royal Flying Corps.  Trade editions ran to multiple printings.  There was also a 600 copy limited edition.  500 of these were signed by the editor and bound similarly to trade editions.  But “the first 100 were reserved for H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, sponsor of the volume, in his gift.”

These hundred were simply magnificent – printed in red and black by The Curwen Press on larger, hand-made paper, profusely illustrated, extravagantly bound in elaborate blind and gilt-tooled white pigskin.  Massive volumes, they measure 13 x 10 x 2 inches and weigh 6.6 pounds. Each copy was hand-numbered.

As impressive as the aesthetics are, more impressive still are the signatures.  These 100 magnificently bound copies were signed by a simply remarkable list of 85 writers and illustrators, as well as four prime ministers (three British Prime Ministers – David Lloyd George, Stanley Baldwin, and Ramsay MacDonald – and French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau), and H.R.H. The Prince of Wales.  The tally is five prime ministers if you count Churchill, who signed as a contributor, but became prime minister in 1940.

So many are the signatures that they span 8 pages.  As stated at the end of the contents: “There are five pages of contributors’ signatures following the Dedication, one page opposite Collotype No. 3 and one page opposite Collotype No. 20.”  The Prince of Wales signed on the blank verso of the Dedication.

The list of signatures includes the following:

Winifred Austen

Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin

Edward Bawden

Max Beerbohn

Hilaire Belloc

Arnold Bennett

Reginald Berkeley

Laurence Binyon

Edmund Blunden

Muirhead Bone

Robert Bridges

Arthur Briscoe

Sir D. Y. Cameron

Bliss Carman

K. Chesterton

Winston S. Churchill

Sir George Clausen

Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau

Sir Arthur Cope

E. Coppard

Edward Gordon Craig

Hamilton Crawford

Eric Fitch Daglish

H. Davies

Walter de la Mare

John Drinkwater

H.R.H. The Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII and, after abdication, the Duke of Windsor)

Jacob Epstein

J.R.G. Exley

John Galsworthy

David Garnett

Mark Gertler

Eric Gill

Stephen Gooden

Lee Hankey

Aldous Huxley

Storm Jameson

Augustus John

Sheila Kaye-Smith

Margaret Kennedy

Eric Kennington

Rudyard Kipling

Dame Laura Knight

Charles Lamb

Sir John Lavery

K. Lawrence

Clare Leighton

Sir William Llewellyn

Prime Minister David Lloyd George

David Low

Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald

James McBey

C. McNeile

Sarah Gertrude Millin

Gilbert Murray

John Nash

Paul Nash

Henry Newbolt

William Nicholson

Sir William Orpen

Sir Bernard Partridge

Poy

Charles Ricketts

Eric Rivilious

David Robertson

Heath Robinson

William Rothenstein

Albert Rutherston

Vita Sackville-West

Randolph Schwabe

Eric A. Shepherd

Sir Frank Short

Edith Sitwell

Snaffles

Sir Stanley Spencer

C. Squire

W. Steer

Strube

F. Tennyson Jesse

Henry Tonks

Edward Wadsworth

William Walcot

Edger Wallace

Hugh Walpole

Rebecca West

G. Wodehouse

Humbert Wolfe

We will soon be pleased to offer an unusually fine example, copy “68”, hand-numbered thus on the limitation page.  The binding and contents are nearly flawless.

Superlative condition owes to the presence of the original felt-lined cloth clamshell case, with a discreet, inked “No.68” on the upper front cover.

Laid in the case is an original description of this book by noted New York bookseller Philip C. Duschnes, who died in 1970.  His tiny gilt sticker is affixed to the lower rear pastedown.

This is another installment in our preview of hoarded treasures being reserved for our forthcoming “Extra Ink” catalogue.  Expect the catalogue in  final weeks of 2018.  During the coming months our blog posts will provide a sneak peek at some of the catalogue items!

This is another installment in our preview of hoarded treasures being reserved for our forthcoming “Extra Ink” catalogue.  Expect the catalogue late in 2018.  During the coming months our blog posts will give you a sneak peek at some of the catalogue items.

Today, a first trade edition of Seven Pillars of Wisdomrendered special by a poignant inscription by Eric Kennington, the man who created thirty-one of the illustrations within its pages.  Inked in blue in four lines on the half title, Kennington wrote: “How lucky I was to meet | & know this man for 14 years | Eric Kennington | August 1954”.

A gift inscription “For Phyllis” dated “Christmas 1935” is inked on the front free endpaper above the illustrated book plate of “PM Jackson”.

A five-line inked notation on the front free endpaper verso that appears to be signed by Christopher Kennington (Eric Kennington’s son) reads: “Phyllis Jackson gave this book to | her brother, Francis Jackson. | On his death in 1980, his son Richard | gave it to me.”

Eric Henri Kennington (1888-1960) was known as a painter, print maker, and sculptor and, most notably, as “a born painter of the nameless heroes of the rank and file” whom he portrayed during both the First and Second World War.

Badly wounded on the Western Front in 1915, during his convalescence he produced The Kensingtons at Laventie, a portrait of a group of infantrymen. When exhibited in the spring of 1916 its portrayal of exhausted soldiers created a sensation. Kennington finished the war employed as a war artist by the Ministry of Information. After the war, he met T. E. Lawrence at an exhibition of Kennington’s war art.

In 1921, Kennington traveled to the Middle East with Lawrence where, Lawrence approvingly wrote of his work, “instinctively he drew the men of the desert.” Kennington served as art editor for Lawrence’s legendary 1926 Subscribers’ Edition of Seven Pillars of Wisdomand produced many of the drawings therein.

That same year he produced a bust of Lawrence – an image of which is the frontispiece of this book.  On 15 February 1927, Lawrence wrote to Kennington praising the bust as “magnificent”. Lawrence said “It represents not me, but my top-moments, those few seconds in which I succeed in thinking myself right out of things.”  In 1935, Kennington served as one of Lawrence’s pallbearers.

In 1936 his second, memorial bust of Lawrence was installed in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral.  Kennington was again an official war artist for the British government during the Second World War (Ministry of Information and Air Ministry), producing a large number of portraits of individual soldiers in addition to military scenes.  Kennington died a member of the Royal Academy six years after writing the inscription in this book.

Seven Pillars of Wisdom, with which Kennington became integrally linked, is the story of T. E. Lawrence’s (1888-1935) remarkable odyssey as instigator, organizer, hero, and tragic figure of the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, which he began as an eccentric junior intelligence officer and ended as “Lawrence of Arabia.” This time defined Lawrence with indelible experience and celebrity which he would spend the rest of his famously short life struggling to reconcile and reject, to recount and repress.  Kennington first produced illustrations for the 1926 “Subscribers’ Edition” of which fewer than 200 complete copies were produced.

Another of Lawrence’s friends, Winston Churchill, wrote: “It ranks with the greatest books ever written in the English language.  If Lawrence had never done anything except write this book as a mere work of the imagination his fame would last… But it is fact, not fiction… An epic, a prodigy, a tale of torment, and in the heart of it – A Man.”

It was only in the summer of 1935, in the weeks following Lawrence’s death, that the text of the Subscribers’ Edition text was finally published for circulation to the general public in the form of a British first trade edition. This copy inscribed by Kennington is the first printing of this British first trade edition. Condition is good, showing the aesthetic flaws of age and wear, but sound.  The khaki cloth binding is square and tight with wear to extremities, overall soiling and staining, and considerable scuffing to the rear cover. The contents are clean with toning to the page edges.  A tiny Colchester bookseller sticker is affixed to the lower rear pastedown.

Look for this and dozens of other signed or inscribed items in our “Extra Ink” catalogue late in 2018!

This is another installment in our preview of hoarded treasures being reserved for our forthcoming “Extra Ink” catalogue.  Expect the catalogue late in 2018.  Over the coming months we will give you a sneak peek at some of the catalogue items in our blog posts.

Today, Yousuf Karsh, Winston Churchill, and CBC’s hometown of San Diego.

We are pleased to offer a special copy of one of the most famous photographic portraits of the twentieth century by one of the world’s most famous portrait photographers.

This is Karsh’s famous portrait of Winston S. Churchill, taken on 30 December 1941 in Ottawa, Canada.  Moment, time, photographer, and subject converged to create both an incredible image and an incredible story to match.

But first, a little local pride in the form of provenance.  As you may know, Churchill Book Collector’s library makes its home in sunny San Diego, California.  And this particular signed Karsh photo has San Diego history.

The photo itself is signed by Karsh in black in two lines on the lower left margin of the photo “© Y Karsh | Ottawa.” But in addition to Karsh’s signature, this photo comes with a presentation letter from Karsh typed on his Ottawa studio stationery and signed “Yousuf Karsh.”  The letter is dated “September 15, 1967” and addressed: “Mrs. Betty Churchill, Secretary to Mr. William Wagner, Vice President, Public Relations, Ryan Aeronautical Corporation, Lindbergh Field, San Diego, California.”

Karsh’s presentation letter reads: “Dear Mrs. Churchill: I could not resist the temptation of sending you one of my favourite photographs of a great man who also bears your name.  It was good to meet you, and to receive so many courtesies while I was in San Diego. With my very good wishes, Sincerely, Yousuf Karsh”.

The story of Ryan Aeronautical Corporation was important not only to San Diego, but to both the history of aviation and the Second World War.

Tubal Claude Ryan (1898-1982) bought his first airplane, a Curtiss JN-4 Jenny, in San Diego in 1922, and began his aeronautical enterprises by charging for rides. By the late 1920s his aviation ventures included the nation’s first year-round regularly scheduled daily airline passenger service.  In 1927, Ryan’s namesake company was tasked with building a single-engine plane that would be called The Spirit of St. Louis for a fellow named Charles Lindbergh.

After Lindberg’s historic solo flight, in 1928 Ryan founded The Ryan Aeronautical Corporation. This company, among many accomplishments, built the preeminent trainer aircraft used though the Second World War, the first jet-plus-propeller aircraft for the Navy, and the first successful vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, as well as pioneering remotely piloted vehicles and jet drones, Doppler systems, and lunar landing radar.

The Ryan Aeronautical Corporation occupied a portion of what is now the San Diego International Airport – formally known as Lindbergh Field. On that site, the company’s assembly-line built airplanes during the Second World War.

In 1969, just a few years after this photograph was signed and presented by Karsh, Ryan Aeronautical became Teledyne Ryan, a subsidiary of Teledyne, at an acquisition price of $128 million.  Teledyne Ryan became, in turn, part of Northrop Grumman in 1999.

Ryan himself reportedly died at the age of eighty-four while sketching a rough design concept for a plane with simplified controls.  (information sourced from the National Aviation Hall of Fame, www.ryanaero.org and http://www.charleslindbergh.com/plane/ryan.asp)

We are tickled about this photograph’s connection to both San Diego and to aviation history, not to mention a Churchill namesake.  That said, we should not let San Diego exuberance overshadow the image itself.

The subject, photographer, and moment

In the days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States formally entered the Second World War, marking the end of Britain’s solitary stand against Hitler’s Germany, which it had sustained since the fall of France. Churchill immediately decided to travel to North America, and on December 12, 1941 he boarded the battleship Duke of York and began the 10-day trip across the Atlantic – a perilous journey at a time when German U-Boats plagued the North Atlantic.

Churchill’s speech of December 26, 1941 to a joint session of the U.S. Congress was sober, resolved, and eloquently defiant, but of course also featured the sparkle of Churchillian wit, which was irrepressible even in the dark hours of the war: “I cannot help reflecting that if my father had been American and my mother British, instead of the other way around, I might have got here on my own.” His speech was also an important personal introduction to the elected leaders he needed to embrace the alliance so vital to his nation. A few days later, in his famous “Some chicken, some neck!” speech of December 30 to both houses of the Canadian Parliament, Churchill was characteristically defiant: “When I warned them that Britain would fight alone whatever they did, their generals told their Prime Minister and his divided Cabinet ‘In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken.’ Some chicken; some neck.”

Injected into the middle of this historic moment was 33-year-old Yousuf Karsh (1908-2002).  It was following his speech to the Canadian Parliament that Churchill was ushered to the Speaker’s Chamber, where Karsh had set up his camera and lighting equipment the night before.

Born in Armenian Turkey, Karsh had fled on foot with his family to Syria before immigrating to Canada in 1924 as a refugee.  After apprenticing with the celebrity portrait photographer John H. Garo, Karsh moved to Ottawa, where he opened a portrait studio with the intent of photographing “people of consequence.”  His breakthrough came in 1936 when he photographed the meeting between U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King. After that assignment Karsh became a regular photographer with the Canadian government.  But it was Karsh’s photo of Churchill on 30 December 1941 that brought him his first international fame.

“…I approached Winston Churchill in 1941 with awe… But as a photographer I had a job to be done and it must be done far too fast.  Mr. Churchill… was in no mood for portraiture and two minutes were all he would allow me… two niggardly minutes in which I must try to put on film a man who filled the world with his fame, and me, on this occasion, with dread.  He marched in scowling, and regarded my camera as he might regard the German enemy.  His expression suited me perfectly, if I could capture it, but the cigar thrust between his teeth seemed somehow incompatible with such a solemn and formal occasion.  Instinctively I removed the cigar.  At this the Churchillian scowl deepened, the head was thrust forward belligerently, and the hand placed on the hip in an attitude of anger.  So he stands in my portrait in what always seemed to me the image of England in those years, defiant and unconquerable.  With a swift change of mood, he came towards me when I was finished, extending his hand and saying, ‘Well, you can certainly make a roaring lion stand still to be photographed.’” (Karsh, Faces of our Time, p.38)

Karsh titled the image “The Roaring Lion.”  It appeared on the cover of Life magazine and established Karsh’s international reputation. In some ways, the image also can be said to have helped make Churchill; more than any other image, Karsh’s portrait of Churchill stands as the definitive portrayal of his character.

Karsh went on to photograph an incredible array of the world’s most prominent personalities, including royalty, statesmen, artists, and writers.  His portraits have come to represent the public images of major figures of twentieth century politics, science, and culture.  Karsh also published numerous books as portfolios of his portrait photographs.  He did not close his Ottawa studio until June 1992, at the age of 83.

The Photograph

This silver gelatin photograph was printed by Karsh’s studio on bright, lustrous paper and mounted by the studio on heavy stock stamped by Karsh’s studio on the verso. A plate mark impressed by Karsh’s studio surrounding the image gives the image further depth. The sheet measures 13.5 x 11.56 inches (34.3 x 26.9 cm), the image 9.43 x 7.5 inches (24 x 19 cm).

Printing date is established by the letter and the fact that Karsh stopped signing his photos with “Ottawa” in the late 1960s. The image verso bears the studio stamp of Karsh’s Ottawa studio reading “COPYRIGHT | the following copyright must be used | © Karsh, Ottawa” as well as a penciled “P of G” notation referring to the image’s inclusion in Karsh’s book Portraits of Greatness(1959).

We deliberately chose not to frame in the conventional manner, with the photo matted and framed beside the letter.  The photo is simply too striking an image to warrant the aesthetic distraction of the letter right beside it.  Instead, we commissioned a custom, double-sided frame using museum quality, archival materials. The solid walnut frame is stained dark black with a thick 8-ply rag board mat for added depth and richness and is glazed with UV filtering acrylic. On the reverse the letter has also been matted and glazed. The framed piece measures 17.375 x 15.375 inches (44.1 x 39 cm).