A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, a full set of four publisher's proof copies, all four volumes retaining their original proof copy dust jackets.
London: Cassell and Company Ltd., 1956. Proof copies of the first editions. Paperback. Here is a full, four-volume set of publisher's proof copies. This is the only full set we have been able to offer thus, with all four proof copies retaining their proof copy dust jackets.
Proof copies
The publisher's proof copies were bound in thin card wraps of varying color. The contents lack the volume I preface and the indexes. Each cover is printed "PROOF ONLY" on the lower front cover, with the publication date and price specified.
Condition
For proof copies, this is a reasonably clean set, varying in condition from good to near fine. The bindings are all intact, with fully attached covers that show no losses. Volume I was clearly used for its intended purpose and shows edgewear, light overall soiling, a bit of lifting to the spine, and a forward lean, with light spotting to the half title. The red Volume II wraps covers are beautifully bright and square with bright contents and only trivial edge wear. Volumes III is square and tight, though lightly soiled with some spine lifting, edgewear, overall soiling, and light spotting to the prelims and page edges. Volume IV is, like Volume II, beautifully square and tight with little edgewear, though soiled to the covers and the bottom edge of the text block. The only notation we find in the set is in pencil on the upper left rear cover corner of Volume IV, “WEE | Whiteson | 672”. All four volumes regain originally issued dust jackets, these tatty and soiled, but nonetheless noteworthy merely for being present. The Volume II dust jacket’s lower front flap has red pencil notation “Publication date | November 26”.
A special interest
The eventual first edition was regarded as one of the most beautiful productions of Churchill's works, with tall red volumes and striking, illustrated dust jackets. Churchill seems to have taken a particularly active and detailed interest in the aesthetics of the publication. He told his doctor: "it is not necessary to break the back of the book to keep it open. I made them take away a quarter of an inch from the outer margins of the two pages and then add the half-inch so gained to the inner margin." He was clearly satisfied with the result, remarking with pardonable exuberance "It opens like an angel's wings." (Gilbert, Volume VIII, p.1184)
A lifelong work
Churchill's four volume epic, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, was published between 1956 and 1958. The work traces a great historical arc from Roman Britain through the end of the Nineteenth Century, ending with the death of Queen Victoria. Perhaps not coincidentally, this is the very year that saw Churchill conclude his first North American lecture tour, take his first seat in Parliament, and begin to make history himself.
The work itself was two decades in the making. The Churchillian conceptions that underpinned it were lifelong. The cultural commonality and vitality of English-speaking peoples animated Churchill throughout his life, from his Victorian youth in an ascendant British Empire to his twilight in the midst of the American century. Churchill began A History of the English-Speaking Peoples in the 1930s, completing a draft of "about half a million words" which was set aside when Churchill returned to the Admiralty and to war in September 1939. The work was fittingly interrupted by an unprecedented alliance among the English-speaking peoples during the Second World War - an alliance Churchill personally did much to cultivate, cement, and sustain. The interruption continued as Churchill bent his literary efforts to his six-volume history, The Second World War, and then his remaining political energies to his second and final premiership from 1951-1955.
Reference: (for the first edition, first printing): Cohen A267.1(I-IV).a, Woods/ICS A138(aa), Langworth p.315. Item #008998
Price: $550.00