The Story of the Malakand Field Force: An Episode of Frontier War, finely bound in full red Morocco by Bayntun-Riviere.
London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1898. First edition, only printing. Full leather. This is an exceptional, finely-bound copy of the first edition, only printing, first state of Churchill's first book, based on his exploits with Sir Bindon Blood's expedition on the Northwest Frontier of India in 1897.
This copy is a compellingly handsome example of the fine binder’s craft, in full red Morocco by Bayntun-Rivière. The binding features a hubbed spine with gilt-ruled compartments, gilt-decorated bands, and gilt-hatched spine ends. The spine features the title and author in the second and third compartments with the publication date at the heel. The first, fourth, fifth, and sixth compartments each feature a gilt lion rampant. The covers feature gilt rule borders and gilt-decorated edges, the front cover gilt-stamped with Churchill’s facsimile signature. The contents are bound with all edges gilt, red and gold silk head and tail bands, and combed pattern marbled endpapers framed by generous, double gilt-ruled turn-ins with decorative corner devices.
“BOUND BY BAYNTUN RIVIERE. BATH. ENGLAND.” is gilt-stamped on the lower front pastedown turn-in. In 1939, the year the Second World War began, the firm of George Bayntun acquired the Rivière Bindery. The Bindery has been in residence on Manvers Street in Bath ever since. This binding predates 1991, having resided in the same collection since then.
Condition of the binding is fine, with no toning, soiling, blemishes, or appreciable wear. The contents are well-suited to the magnificent binding - strikingly bright and clean. All maps are intact, including the folding maps at pages 1 and 146, as is the frontispiece and tissue guard. We find no previous ownership marks and almost no spotting, noting just a few, stray, individual spots in the entire text. The publisher’s original catalogue remains bound in. The finished manuscript was sent to his mother on the last day of 1897 and published on 14 March of 1898. Publication was arranged by Churchill's uncle while the author was still in India, resulting in numerous spelling and detail errors. Churchill was incensed by the errors and acted with haste to address them. Hence later states of the first edition feature errata slips. Home Issue copies also bear a 32-page publisher’s catalogue bound in at the back, which is dated either "12/97" or "3/98". This copy is first state, confirmed by the lack of an errata slip and a publisher’s catalogue dated “12/97”.
When this book was written and published, Churchill was a young cavalry officer still serving in India. While he had successfully applied his pen as a war correspondent - indeed the book is based on his dispatches to the Daily Telegraph and the Pioneer Mail - this was his first book-length work. He clearly labored over it, writing to his mother: "I have discovered a great power of application which I did not think I possessed. For two months I have worked not less than five hours a day."
The young Churchill was motivated by a combination of pique and ambition. He was vexed that his Daily Telegraph columns were to be published unsigned. On 25 October 1897 Churchill wrote to his mother: "...I had written them with the design... of bringing my personality before the electorate." Two weeks later, his resolve to write a book firming, Churchill again wrote to his mother: "...It is a great undertaking but if carried out will yield substantial results in every way, financially, politically, and even, though do I care a damn, militarily." Three years and several military campaigns after expressing this ambition, Churchill was elected to Parliament for the first time. Churchill's political career would last two thirds of a century, see him occupy Cabinet office during each of the first six decades of the twentieth century, carry him twice to the premiership and, further still, into the annals of history as a preeminent statesman. All lay still ahead of Churchill when this, his first book, was published.
Reference: Cohen A1.1.a, Woods/ICS A1(aa), Langworth p.12. Item #008298
Price: $5,000.00