In the Balance.
London: Cassell and Company Ltd., 1951. First edition, only printing. Hardcover. This is a jacketed British first edition, only printing of the third of Churchill's five postwar speech volumes. Condition is very good plus in a good plus dust jacket. The blue cloth binding is square, clean, and tight with bright spine gilt. Minor shelf wear to the bottom edge is the only exterior flaw to report. The contents are bright with no previous ownership marks. Spotting is primarily confined to the top edge of the text block with just a few spots to the fore edge. The unclipped dust jacket retains the original lower front flap price, which nonetheless has a dealer sticker obscuring the original price. A previous owner has neatly excised a 1.75 inch (4.5 cm) section of the upper oak leaf border form the rear flap to carefully patch a missing section of the border at the head of the spine. The jacket is otherwise complete, with only minor wear to extremities and a moderately soiled white rear panel. The dust jacket is protected beneath a clear, removable, archival cover.
In the Balance includes 58 speeches and broadcasts delivered between 26 January 1949 and 14 December 1950. Having done so much to win the Second World War, Churchill faced frustration of his postwar plans when his wartime government fell to Labour in the General Election of July 1945. In the Balance was published on 18 October 1951, just a week before the Conservatives won the General Election, returning Churchill to Downing Street on 26 October 1951 at the age of 76.
Befitting a Leader of the Opposition, Churchill's speeches address a wide range of domestic and foreign issues, including devaluation of the British Pound, the General Election of February 1950, the Korean War, and establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. By this time, the political experience that underpinned Churchill's postwar oratory was unrivaled. Member of Parliament for half a century, Churchill was beginning his sixth consecutive decade serving in a British Cabinet.
Perhaps nothing better speaks to Churchill's truly singular experience than his 31 March 1949 speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (at pages 40-51), where he gave a tour de force survey of the period 1900-1945 that is - characteristic of Churchill - both incisive and lyrical: "In 1900 a sense of moving hopefully forward to brighter, broader, easier days predominated. Little did we guess that what has been called the Century of the Common Man would witness as its outstanding feature more common men killing each other with greater facilities than any other five centuries put together in the history of the world... but it is not in the power of material forces in any period... to alter the main elements in human nature or restrict the infinite variety of forms in which the soul and genius of the human race can and will express itself." Fittingly, in 1953, Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, in part “…for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.”
Reference: Cohen A255.1, Woods/ICS A130(a), Langworth p.301. Item #007563
Price: $95.00