Great Contemporaries, a splendid early Second World War presentation copy inscribed and dated by Churchill in December 1940 as a Christmas gift to his private secretary, Sir John "Jock" Colville
London: Thornton Butterworth Limited, 1940. First Revised and Expanded Edition, second printing. Hardcover. This remarkable presentation copy, published the month Winston Churchill became Britain’s wartime Prime Minister, is Churchill’s celebrated collection of insightful essays about leading personalities of the day, inscribed as a Christmas gift to Churchill’s private secretary, Sir John “Jock” Rupert Colville (1915-1987).
The inscription, inked by Churchill in five lines on the half-title, reads: “To | John R. Colville | from | Winston S. Churchill | Christmas 1940”. Colville’s bookplate, featuring his coat of arms, printed name, and motto “OBLIER NE PUIS”, is affixed to the front pastedown.
The Second World War was only a month old when, on 3 October 1939, a brilliant 24-year-old civil servant in the Foreign Office was appointed Assistant Private Secretary to then-British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Seven months later, wartime leadership, and Colville’s employment, passed to Winston Churchill. Seven months after that, Churchill inscribed this copy to the young man who would become such an indispensable part of his staff.
Colville would remain “almost constantly at Winston’s side” for the majority of Churchill’s two premierships (May 1940-July 1945 and October 1951-April 1955). Colville’s 10 Downing Street service to Churchill was interrupted only by his active service as an RAF pilot between October 1941 and December 1943. Apart from Colville’s official contributions to history, we are obliged to him for his defiance; although it was forbidden under wartime regulations, Colville kept meticulous diaries which he locked nightly into his 10 Downing Street desk. Significant excerpts from this diary were eventually published in 1985, self-deprecatingly titled The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries 1939-1955). Colville’s compulsive will to write, his position at the epicenter of action, Churchill’s deep confidence in him, and his keen and discerning intellect render Colville’s diaries a significant contribution to the known history of Churchill and his time. In the interwar years, Colville served as Private Secretary to Queen Elizabeth II (while she was still Princess Elizabeth) and married one of her ladies-in-waiting. Colville raised funds for the establishment of Churchill College, Cambridge (where his diaries now reside), and was eventually a trustee of both Sir Winston’s and Lady Churchill’s estates.
Most of this lay yet before Colville when Winston Churchill inscribed this volume to him; at Christmas 1940, Colville had been working for Churchill for just seven months. Most of the long war and their even longer association still lay before the two men. Churchill had not yet survived a full year at 10 Downing Street, Colville had yet to survive his own military service, and the survival of Britain itself was still much in doubt. In fact, the very formality of the inscription is worthy of note; by war’s end Churchill would address his inscriptions to “Jock”. This book is quite likely among the first that Churchill inscribed to Colville.
Great Contemporaries was first published in 1937. Neville Chamberlain, Colville’s then-future boss and perhaps Churchill’s most vexing political opponent at the time, wrote to Churchill on 4 October 1937 to say: “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.” A second, revised and expanded edition was published in 1938, adding four new essays (Fisher, Parnell, Baden-Powell, and Franklin D. Roosevelt). This inscribed presentation copy is the second and final printing of the revised and expanded edition, published in May 1940.
Jock Colville’s copy is in very good condition. The blue cloth binding remains square and tight with sharp corners. Scuffing and shelf wear are light, the spine only just a little dulled and the spine’s gilt print a little flaked. The contents remain notably bright and clean with no spotting.
Reference: Cohen A105.3.a, Woods/ICS A43(b.1), Langworth p.182. Item #007372
Price: $15,000.00