Savrola.
London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1900. First edition, first printing, first state. Hardcover. This is the British first edition, first printing, first state of Churchill's third book and only novel.
The British first edition was issued from American plates, with only 1,500 copies of the first printing published on 12 February 1900. It is bound quite differently from its U.S. counterpart, in green cloth with Churchill's facsimile signature in gilt on the front cover. The British first edition proved less durable than its U.S. counterpart, and is most often seen with a significantly worn and cocked binding and spotted contents.
This copy is in very good condition, sound with a bright, much better than typical binding, despite some aesthetic defects without and some typical spotting within. There are two states of the first printing, the second state distinguished by a title page cancellans with a blank verso. This copy confirms first state with an integral title page with the print history on the title page verso. The binding remains notably bright and unusually square, with only the slightest suggestion of a forward lean. – a rarity, since nearly every copy we encounter has a pronounced forward lean. We note no toning of the green cloth and vivid gilt on both front cover and spine. Shelf presentation is quite good. Apart from light shelf wear to extremities, primarily the spine ends and corners, the main defect is some blotchy mottling along the vertical edges of the front and rear covers. The contents are quite respectable, retaining a crisp feel with only modest age-toning. The original black endpapers are intact, as is the rear advertisement leaf, featuring Churchill’s preceding, first two published books – The River War and The Story of the Malakand Field Force. Spotting, endemic to the edition, is appreciable only to the prelims through page 21 and to the page edges. The sole previous ownership mark is contemporary – a brief, inked gift inscription dated “1900” on the upper half-title recto.
A very young Churchill was exuberant about publication at the time. Even though Savrola was his third published book, it was actually the first book he undertook and the second he completed. His “Tale of the Revolution in Laurania” is a melodramatic story of political intrigue in a fictional Mediterranean state. Professor Patrick Powers (1943-2022), a singular authority on Savrola, asserted that Savrola gave “dramatic voice to Churchill’s mature philosophical reflections about his fundamental political and ethical principles at the very moment when he settled on them for the rest of his life.” (Powers, Finest Hour #74)
Churchill would later make deprecating comments about his novel and it is perhaps instructive that he never wrote another. In his 1930 autobiography he wrote, "I have consistently urged my friends to abstain from reading it [Savrola]." However, his mixed feelings about his only novel did not keep Churchill from writing a foreword to a new edition in 1956: "The preface to the first edition in 1900 submitted the book 'with considerable trepidation to the judgment or the clemency of the public.' The intervening fifty-five years have somewhat dulled though certainly not changed my sentiments on this point." Irrespective of Churchill's feelings about his book or the literary merit thereof, the novel certainly provides an interesting insight into the early political perspective and sentiment of the then very young Churchill.
Reference: Cohen A3.2.a, Woods/ICS A3(ba.1), Langworth p.41. Item #008884
Price: $1,000.00