The Second World War, a full set of British first editions, the first volume signed by Churchill in the last year of his final premiership for a Member of Parliament, with a telegram from Churchill agreeing to sign the volume and a letter of presentation from Churchill's Private Secretary
London: Cassell and Company Ltd., 1948. First edition, first printing. Hardcover. This full, six-volume, jacketed set of British first editions of Winston S. Churchill’s war memoirs features Churchill’s presentation signature, telegram, secretarial presentation letter, and recipient bookplate all in the first volume, The Gathering Storm. The author signed “Winston S. Churchill” on the upper half-title recto. Tipped onto the front free endpaper recto is a “1 August 1955” telegram from Churchill to “WOODROW WYATT ESQ MP” stating “I WILL BE VERY GLAD TO SIGN THE VOLUMES = WINSTON CHURCHILL”. Affixed to the front pastedown is Wyatt’s armorial bookplate. Laid in (formerly tipped on, now loose) at the final free endpaper verso is a typed letter signed by Doreen Pugh, Churchill’s Private Secretary. The letter, on Churchill’s “CHARTWELL” stationery, is dated “1 September, 1955” and reads “Dear Mr. Wyatt | Sir Winston was very happy | to sign these volumes for you.”
The presentation volume is in very good condition. The black cloth binding is clean with bright spine gilt, light shelf wear to extremities, a hint of outward warp to the front cover, and trivial scuffs to the rear cover. The contents are notably clean, with no spotting, as are the fore and bottom edges. The red-stained top edges are sunned to pink.
The balance of this first printing set is exceptionally clean, featuring near fine volumes and dust jackets. All six dust jackets are unclipped, retaining their original front flap prices, with bright, uniform shelf appearance, vivid red subtitles, and no discernible color shift between the jacket faces and spines.
The recipient, Baron Woodrow Lyle Wyatt of Weeford (1918-1997), was a colorful politician, journalist, and author.
Wyatt sat in the House of Commons for 21 years and the House of Lords for 10, but only served in a Government (as an Under-Secretary) for six months. Wyatt served in the Second World War, took part in the Normandy invasion, and was even mentioned in dispatches, but found his military career confining after he launched an official complaint against a military superior. Wyatt was first elected as a Labor MP in the same 1945 election that cost Churchill his wartime premiership.
Wyatt’s “undoubted charm was offset by a rasping personality and often his actions alienated admirers and even close friends… Wyatt always tried to live like a lord even when he was a Labor MP. He owned racehorses, drank on average nearly two bottles of wine a day until his doctor and his liver rebelled, and travelled politically from the soft left to the far right accompanied by a succession of beautiful women [including four wives] and a cloud of Havana cigar smoke.”
As a journalist, Wyatt was not only “one of the first television stars produced by the new-style current affairs programmes of the 1950s”, but also wrote newspaper columns for the Mirror group and the Murdoch organization. Seemingly improbably, Wyatt was an early and ardent supporter of Margaret Thatcher. It was she who conferred a knighthood on him in 1983 and created him a life peer in 1987. (The Independent, ODNB)
Wyatt lost his first Labor seat in the Commons in 1955, the same year Winston Churchill resigned his second and final premiership and signed this first volume of his war memoirs for Wyatt.
The year before, on 1 February 1954 while then-Prime Minister Churchill was addressing the House of Commons about the new Army rifle, Wyatt had made particularly harsh remarks, accusing Churchill of both “lacking in patriotism” and ignorance about military weapons – both offensively ludicrous allegations. (Gilbert VII)
Typically, when inscribing the first volume of his war memoirs for someone known to him, Churchill personalized the inscription. In this case, it seems plausible to speculate that either or both Wyatt’s conduct in debate or general personality defects might have led Churchill to refrain from making any personalized inscription when accommodating Wyatt’s signature request.
Cohen A240.4(I-VI), Woods/ICS A123(ba), Langworth p.264. Item #007598
Price: $12,000.00