Prelude to Victory.
London: Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1939. First edition, first printing. Hardcover. This is a jacketed first edition, first printing of General Spears’s memoir of his role as liaison officer in 1917 during the First World War’s failed Franco-British Nivelle Offensive. The book was a successor to Spears’s Liaison, 1914 (1930). As prominently noted in red print on the dust jacket spine and front face, Winston Churchill contributed an introduction (pages 11-13).
Condition approaches near fine in a good plus dust jacket. The red cloth binding is square, clean, and unfaded with sharp corners and bright spine gilt. We note only trivial shelf wear to the bottom edges and a little wrinkling to the spine ends. The contents are clean, the red-stained top edges retaining uniformly dark, unfaded hue. Very light spotting appears confined to the text block fore edges with only slight, occasional intrusions into the text, confined to blank margins. The sole previous ownership mark is a printed Australian bookseller's ticket affixed to the lower right front pastedown: "A. H. SPENCER Pty. Ltd | New, Secondhand, and Rare | Booksellers" of "Melbourne". Differential toning of the endpapers corresponding to the dust jacket flaps confirms that this copy has spent life jacketed. The dust jacket is unclipped, the original “18s. net” front flap price intact, and has only minor loss to the spine ends and upper front corner. The jacket is soiled, modestly spine-toned, and shows some short, closed tears and attendant wrinkling to the edges. The jacket is protected beneath a clear, removable, archival cover.
In his generous introduction, Churchill observes of Spears that “From his position as a Liaison Officer… he had the opportunity of knowing much that passed behind the lines as well as at the front.” Churchill praises Prelude to Victory as “a military and human study of the highest value and interest.” This was not polite hyperbole. Upon finishing the book, Churchill wrote to Spears on 20 July 1939, “I think it a great work, and one of the finest I have read in the literature of the War.”
His First World War role as liaison officer between British and French high commands gave Major General Sir Edward Louis Spears (1886-1974) not only two highly regarded books, but saw him awarded the Military Cross, made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire and a Commander of the French Legion of Honor, and promoted to brigadier general. Spears served in Parliament from 1922-24 and 1931-45. In the early May 1940 crisis that saw Churchill replace Chamberlain as prime minister, Spears voted against Chamberlain. In 1940, not long after publishing and inscribing this book, now-Prime Minister Churchill sent Spears to France to report “at first hand.” Spears not only traveled to besieged France with and for Churchill, but also rescued Charles De Gaulle; it was onboard Spears’s plane that De Gaulle took Gallic flight, bravely abandoning his country, army, wife, and children. Spears later served as envoy to Syria and Lebanon and was knighted in 1942.
References: Cohen B67; Woods B33; Gilbert, Vol. VI. Item #008959
Price: $850.00