Marlborough: His Life and Times, full set of four British first edition, first printings, Volume III a presentation copy inscribed and dated in the month of publication to Churchill's longtime supporter and admirer and future prominent anti-appeaser Duff Cooper, later 1st Viscount Norwich, all four volumes featuring Cooper's bookplate.
London: George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd., 1933. First edition, first printing. Hardcover. This full set of four first edition, first printings, of Winston S. Churchill’s monumental biography of his great ancestor, John Churchill, the first duke of Marlborough, belonged to Churchill's longtime supporter and admirer and prominent anti-appeaser Duff Cooper, later 1st Viscount Norwich. All four volumes feature Cooper’s illustrated bookplate affixed to the front free endpaper. Volume III, published on 23 October 1936, is an author’s presentation copy, inscribed by Churchill in four lines on the front free endpaper recto: “A. Duff Cooper | from | Winston S. Churchill | October 1936”.
This British first trade edition is physically impressive. Each substantial volume is bound in plum cloth with beveled edges and the Marlborough coat of arms gilt on the front cover. Moreover, each volume is profusely illustrated, the contents bound with headbands, and gilt top edges. Unfortunately, the plum cloth binding of Volumes I-III proved highly susceptible to sun fading. (A different, more fade-resistant dye was used in Volume IV.) The contents proved quite susceptible to spotting and toning.
This set is in very good minus overall condition. Volume III - the inscribed presentation copy – is the best of the four, very good plus, square and tight with sharp corners. We note moderate, uniform spine toning, milder toning along the rear cover beside the joint, and only minor blemishes and shelf wear. The contents are bright with a crisp feel, no spotting, no previous ownership marks other than Churchill’s inscription and Cooper’s bookplate, and mild age toning to the otherwise clean fore and bottom edges.
The balance of the set – Volumes I, II & IV – feature tight bindings, though with more scuffs and blemishes than Volume III, Volumes I & II spine-toned as usual, Volume I also with some mottling to the lower spine and lower left front cover. The contents of all three volumes remain bright and clean with no ownership marks other than Cooper’s bookplates. Only Volume IV shows light spotting, confined to the endpapers. Laid into Volume II is a contemporary newspaper clipping (date and paper unidentified) of Cooper’s own published review of Volume II.
Sir Alfred Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich (1890-1954) was educated at Eton and Oxford, served with the Grenadier Guards during the First World War, and was elected to Parliament as a Conservative in 1924. He served as: Secretary for War (1935-37); First Lord of the Admiralty (1937-38); Minister of Information (1940-41); and Ambassador to France (1944-47). Cooper was married to Lady Diana Manners, daughter of the Duke of Rutland and a successful actress. Cooper was knighted in 1948 and created Viscount in 1952.
When Churchill inscribed this volume for Cooper in October 1936, the two men had long been on good terms. Moreover, Churchill had requested and received feedback from Cooper on Volume I. But unlike Cooper, Churchill was out of power and out of favor, at odds with both his Conservative Party and prevailing public sentiment. Three and a half eventful years later he would be wartime Prime Minister, and Cooper his Minister of Information.
Cooper arguably had his own “Finest Hour” in October 1938, two years after this volume was inscribed to him. He was dining with Churchill at the Other Club when it was announced that the Munich Agreement, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s craven attempt to appease Hitler, had been signed. At the time, Cooper was First Lord of the Admiralty – the position Churchill had held from 1911-1915 and would hold again from late-1939 to mid-1940. Cooper resigned from the Government in protest. Cooper’s wife, Lady Diana, telephoned Churchill to tell him the news and later recalled in her memoirs how, as she spoke, “his voice was broken with emotion. I could hear him cry.”
A long and eventful decade and a half later, at a 1953 meeting of the Other Club during Churchill’s second and final premiership, Cooper penned a poem praising Churchill on the back of a menu, the final stanza of which read:
When final honours are bestowed
and last accounts are done,
Then shall we know how much was owed
by all the world to one.
Cooper died a month later.
Reference: Cohen A97.2(I-IV).a, Woods/ICS A40(aa), Langworth p.166. Item #008319
Price: $14,000.00