Roosevelt, Franklin D., and Winston Churchill

Addresses. Washington: (Government Printing Office for) The White House, Christmastime, 1942



8vo (10 x 7 in.; 254 x 178 mm, uncut). Color-printed title-page vignette of crossed flags, some printing in red and blue throughout, folding facsimile of "Declaration by United Nations" pledging cooperation in combating the members of the Tripartite Pact. Original art vellum over marbled boards, blue morocco spine label gilt, plain endpapers, top edge gilt, others uncut, large portion of original glassine dust-jacket. Original blue board slipcase; a bit rubbed.

Limited edition, no. 26 of 100 copies of Roosevelt's first wartime White House Christmas book. Presentation copy, inscribed and signed on the front free endpaper "For William C. Bullitt with the affectionate regards of his old friend Franklin D. Roosevelt, Chirstmas 1942." Below the inscription, Bullitt has mounted one of his own calling cards.

The Addresses comprise four speeches by President Roosevelt, including his "Day of Infamy" address to a joint session of Congress and his 1942 State of the Union; Prime Minister Churchill's 26 December 1941 address to the Congress; and the joint Christmas greetings of the two leaders on Christmas Eve 1941. William Bullitt seems a unlikely recipient of this holiday token. Although Roosevelt had appointed him ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1933 and to France in 1936, the two men had fallen out over Bullitt's refusal to abandon Paris and follow the French government to Bordeaux, and he was soon forced out of the State Department.