The Turn of the Tide: 1939-1943, signed by the author and extollingly inscribed to Winston S. Churchill.
A Study based on the Diaries and Autobiographical Notes of Field Marshal The Viscount Alanbrooke, K.G., O.M.
St. James's Place, London: Collins, 1957. First edition, first printing. Hardcover. This jacketed first edition is not only signed by the author, but extollingly inscribed to Winston S. Churchill. The author signed "Arthur Bryant" just below his printed name at the head of the title page and, in the same blue ink, in the space between the subtitle and publisher on the lower half of the title page, this copy is inscribed in six lines: "For | Winston Churchill | who | when it was forfeit | gave England | back her life."
Condition is very good in a very good minus dust jacket. The charcoal cloth binding is tight, clean, and unfaded, with bright spine gilt, though with light wear to extremities, including bruised corners. The contents are bright with a crisp feel. Differential toning to the endpapers corresponding to the dust jacket flaps confirms that this copy has spent life jacketed. Spotting appears confined to the endpapers, half-title and title pages, and top edges. The dust jacket is unclipped, retaining the original lower front flap price, and bright, with no appreciable color shift between the red face and spine. The jacket is substantially complete, with trivial loss confined to the spine ends, upper left front face, and flap fold corners. The white faces and flaps of the jacket show spotting. The dust jacket is protected beneath a clear, removable, archival cover.
This book came to us from a small cache of material previously belonging to Wendy Reves (1916-2007) the wife of Churchill’s indispensable literary agent, Emery Reves (1904-1981). Perhaps no other figure played such an important - even vital - role in bringing Churchill’s writing to a worldwide audience. Particularly in the years immediately preceding the Second World War, Emery Reves succeeded in putting Churchill's relentless advocacy of democratic ideals before an incredibly diverse international audience. Churchill’s bibliographer Ronald Cohen says Reves was Churchill's "principal literary agent for foreign-language periodical contributions and, ultimately, for the foreign-language and North American editions of The Second World War and A History of the English-Speaking Peoples in both volume and periodical form." (Cohen, Vol. I, p.1076). "A profitable business relationship… grew over time into an enduring personal friendship". In his final years, Churchill was frequently hosted by Wendy and Emery at La Pausa, the Reves’s French Riviera villa originally built for Coco Chanel and acquired by Reves in 1953 with proceeds earned from foreign language rights to Churchill’s The Second World War. There Churchill would write, paint, and relax.
The author, noted historian and biographer Sir Arthur Bryant (1899-1985) used the war-time diaries of Field-Marshal Lord Alanbrooke to create “the portraits of two great men – the one [Churchill] known to the whole world, the other [Alanbrooke] hardly known even in his own country.” Field Marshal Alan Francis Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke (1883-1963) was born to a family with a centuries-long, distinguished military service record and served as foremost military advisor to Churchill and the coordinator of British military efforts during the Second World War. At the apex of a distinguished and decorated military career, in December 1941, Brooke became chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) "in place of Dill, who had been no match for Winston Churchill. Soon thereafter Brooke became, in addition, chairman of the chiefs of staff committee and effectively the principal strategic adviser to the war cabinet as well as the professional head of the army." (ODNB)
Brooke proved pivotal, coordinating, commanding, consensus building, "and, often above all... contriv[ing] that Churchill's indispensable and magnificent energies were not misdirected towards unsound and erratic strategic schemes." (ODNB) Brooke was promoted to Field Marshal in 1944, created Baron Alanbrooke in 1945, and Viscount Alanbrooke in 1946, the year in which he was also created KG and admitted to the Order of Merit.
Reference: Zoller B325. Item #008049
Price: $2,400.00