Great Contemporaries, finely bound.
London: Thornton Butterworth Limited, 1937. First edition, first printing. Full leather. This is a finely bound copy of the first edition, first printing. Great Contemporaries is Churchill's much-praised collection of insightful essays about 21 leading personalities of the day - including the likes of Lawrence, Shaw, and, most famously, Hitler.
The half-leather navy blue Morocco goatskin binding (deferential to the original blue cloth) features a hubbed spine with blind-rule framed raised bands, a gilt-printed title, author, and publication date, and a gilt lion rampant in each unprinted spine compartment. The sides are navy buckram with double blind ruled transitions. The contents are bound with blue and white silk head and tail bands and gilt top edges.
Condition is near fine. The binding is square, clean, tight, and unfaded, with no discernible wear. Incidental blemishes seem inherent to the goatskin. The first printing contents are well-suited to a fine binding, crisp with no previous ownership marks and no apparent spotting. We note only slight age-toning. The gilt top edges are uniformly bright. The fore edges and bottom edges show only incidental soiling.
Neville Chamberlain, perhaps Churchill’s most vexing political opponent at the time Great Contemporaries was published, wrote to Churchill on 4 October 1937: “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.” Naturally, in the course of sketching the character of his contemporaries Churchill necessarily reveals some of his own character and perspective.
Churchill's portrait of T.E. Lawrence, published here just a few years before the Second World War, might well have been written about the author rather than by him: "The impression of the personality of Lawrence remains living and vivid upon the minds of his friends, and the sense of his loss is in no way dimmed among his countrymen. All feel the poorer that he has gone from us. In these days dangers and difficulties gather upon Britain and her Empire, and we are also conscious of a lack of outstanding figures with which to overcome them. Here was a man in whom there existed not only an immense capacity for service, but that touch of genius which everyone recognizes and no one can define." (Great Contemporaries, p.164)
Churchill's piece about Hitler can be a shock to the modern ear, as it underscores his ability to write a balanced appraisal of his subject while expressing his earnest desire to avoid the war that he would fight with such ferocious resolve only a few years later. There is a reason this book has seen many subsequent editions in the intervening years. It was written with what has been called "penetrating evaluation, humor, and understanding."
While some of the subjects of Churchill's sketches have receded into history, many remain well-known and all remain compellingly drawn. The better part of a century on, this remains an engaging and insightful read.
Reference: Cohen A105.1.a, Woods/ICS A43(a.1), Langworth p.178. Item #008068
Price: $1,200.00