English Literature, History, Children's Books and Illustrations

/

Lot 20
  • 20

Churchill, Sir Winston

Estimate
7,000 - 10,000 GBP
Log in to view results
bidding is closed

Description

  • Churchill, Sir Winston
  • Step by Step. Butterworth, 1939
  • Paper
8vo, FIRST EDITION, INSCRIBED TO CLEMENT ATLEE BY SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL ("To | C.R. Attlee | with best wishes for speedy | recovery | from | Winston Churchill | June 1939 | On no account read it!") on the front free endpaper, folding map, original green cloth lettered in gilt on spine, very slight offsetting to endpapers

Provenance

Clement Attlee, presentation inscription from the author, bookplate

Literature

Cohen A111; Woods A45

Catalogue Note

AN IMPORTANT PRESENTATION COPY LINKING THE TWO MEN WHO WOULD STEER GREAT BRITAIN THROUGH THE SECOND WORLD WAR, INSCRIBED A FEW MONTHS BEFORE WAR WAS DECLARED.

Churchill published Step by Step, a collection of his articles for the Daily Telegraph and Evening Standard, in late June 1939 whilst Attlee, the leader of the opposition, was away from parliament having been taken ill in March of the same year. Attlee was still recovering at home in North Wales when war with Germany, grimly anticipated in Churchill's writing, was declared in September. By the end of the year, Churchill and Attlee would be working together in the war cabinet.

Despite Churchill's instruction to Attlee not to read his book, Attlee was clearly familiar with its contents and the author's grim prophecies for the fate of Europe. In a letter to Churchill acknowledging the gift of this copy, Attlee writes, "It must be a melancholy satisfaction to see how right you were" (letter dated 1 July 1939, quoted in Cohen).