The World Crisis 1911-1918, a Second World War presentation copy inscribed by Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill as a 1942 Christmas gift to Charles Barker, a member of Churchill's 10 Downing Street Private Office Staff for the entirety of the war.
London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1941. Macmillan issue from first edition plates, first printing. Hardcover. This presentation copy of Winston Churchill’s acclaimed history of the First World War is inscribed in five lines on the front free endpaper recto: “To | Charles Barker | from | Winston Churchill | Christmas 1942”. Tipped onto the facing front pastedown is a note on 10 Downing Street stationery with the typed message: “With the Prime Minister’s | best wishes for Christmas and the | New Year | December 1942.”
Provenance is triply intriguing; it was inscribed during the Second World War at 10 Downing Street by then-Prime Minister Churchill, presented as a Christmas gift to a member of his Private Staff, and subsequently owned by a noted Churchill enthusiast and collector.
Condition is very good plus in a very good plus dust jacket. The blue cloth binding is square, clean, and tight with sharp corners and bright spine gilt. Trivial toning is confined to extremities where sunlight snuck past the edges of the dust jacket. The contents are notably clean, despite the thin, wartime paper. We find no spotting. Modest toning appears primarily confined to the endpapers and page edges, with light dust soiling to the top edges. The dust jacket is entirely complete, just lightly toned with only mild wear to extremities and a small scratch on the upper spine below the subtitle.
Charles Barker
British civil servant Charles Barker worked directly for Churchill for the entirety of Churchill’s wartime premiership, from May 1940 to July 1945. During the War, Barker “kept both the papers and the private secretaries in order… cheered up the doleful and was cynically destructive of pomposity. Life at 10 Downing Street would have been less efficient and less enjoyable without him.” (Colville, Winston Churchill and His Inner Circle, p.80) Barker was an essential part of the small cadre comprising Churchill’s Private Office staff, who “worked round the clock to assemble the incoming papers and telegrams, to prepare the minutes for dispatch, to answer letters and queries, and to ensure that his instructions were circulated and followed up.” (Gilbert, Vol. VI) Among the first duties Churchill assigned to Barker was to regularly empty all the War Rooms and 10 Downing Street waste baskets then burn everything that might be deemed secret. This was not a janitorial duty, but a matter of national security. Barker was awarded an M.B.E. in the 1946 New Year Honours, of course on Churchill’s recommendation.
Further Provenance
This book was part of the collection of British army veteran and noted Churchillian Major Alan Taylor-Smith (1928-2019) of Westerham, Kent, proximate to Churchill’s beloved country home, Chartwell.
The Edition
This inscribed presentation copy is the first Macmillan issue of the abridged and revised single-volume edition of Winston Churchill’s acclaimed history of the First World War.
A quarter of a century before the Second World War endowed him with lasting fame, Winston Churchill played a uniquely critical, controversial, and varied role in the “War to end all wars”. Then, being Churchill, he wrote about it.
The World Crisis was originally published in six volumes between 1923 and 1931. This first abridged and revised edition – The World Crisis 1911-1918 – was published by Thornton Butterworth just as Churchill was beginning his “wilderness years” – a decade he spent out of power and out of favor, frequently at odds with both his Government and prevailing public sentiment. But in 1940 Churchill became wartime Prime Minister. And also in 1940, Thornton Butterworth went under and a different publisher, Macmillan, acquired the rights to several of Churchill’s books.
Macmillan produced three printings of The World Crisis 1911-1918. This is the first, published in December 1941, the same month the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States finally formally entered the war. This is technically an “issue” and not an “edition” since it was printed from first edition plates.
Reference: Cohen A69.14.a, Woods/ICS A31(bd.1), Langworth p.116. Item #008438
Price: $12,000.00