If It Had Happened Otherwise.
The first volume appearance of Churchill's speculative history essay "If Lee Had Not Won the Battle of Gettysburg"
London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1931. First edition. Hardcover. This the first edition, first printing of the first volume appearance of Churchill's engaging speculative history essay "If Lee Had Not Won the Battle of Gettysburg". This copy is rendered doubly compelling by being an elusive binding variant and retaining the rare and striking dust jacket.
This jacketed copy – the only we have offered - is very good plus in a very good plus dust jacket. The green cloth binding is square and tight with bright spine gilt and sharp corners. We note only light soiling to extremities. The contents remain bright with a crisp feel and no previous ownership marks. Differential toning to the endpapers corresponds to the bright yellow dust jacket flaps, confirming that this copy has spent life jacketed. Spotting is heavy to the top edge, lighter to the fore and bottom edges, occasionally intruding into the blank inner margins. The distinctive dust jacket, printed in green and black on yellow stock, is complete apart from fractional loss to the spine head and unclipped, retaining the original lower front flap price. The spine shows only slight toning and minor wear is substantially confined to extremities. The dust jacket is protected beneath a removable, clear, archival cover.
Churchill's intriguing piece first appeared in Scribner's Magazine in December 1930 as part of a series of "What If" articles by eminent authors of the time. In 1931, Longmans published this book-length work on the same theme, including Churchill's piece at pp. 173-196. This British first edition preceded an American counterpart and, oddly, we find it scarcer than copies of the original magazine publication. It becomes genuinely rare thus, in the original dust jacket, and is rendered an elusive prize when found in this variant binding of the British first edition, first printing. Per Churchill's bibliographer, Ronald I. Cohen, this variant binding is "Bound in moderate bluish green embossed calico-texture cloth" (as opposed to red cloth) and slightly reduced page size (from 235 x 151.2 mm to 217 x 140.7 mm).
Churchill's essay herein displays the commanding grasp of history and the facility for extrapolation that made him so formidable as both a statesman and a writer. Moreover, his interest in America's great struggle was quite serious; Churchill toured Virginia battlefields with the great Civil War historian Douglas Southall Freeman and toured Gettysburg with none other than Dwight Eisenhower. Thirty years later, Churchill would publish a book on the subject, The American Civil War (1961), excerpted from his epic A History of the English-Speaking Peoples.
Reference: Cohen B43.1.b, Woods B18. Item #008157
Price: $950.00