Geschichte. [A History of the English-Speaking Peoples].

CHURCHILL, Winston S.

$4,800.00

Item Number: 133321

Bern, Switzerland: Alfred Scherz Verlag, 1956-1958.

First Swiss editions of each of the four volumes of this set of Churchill’s classic history. Octavo, original cloth, 4 volumes, illustrated from maps and diagrams. Boldly signed in volume two by Winston Churchill on the the half -title page. From the library of Emery Reves. Reves contributed greatly to orienting the work toward a wider audience, and in whose home it was completed. Using his intimate knowledge of foreign markets, Reves was able to help adapt Churchill’s more anglophone conception for wider audiences. Churchill wrote of how, “[Reves] has had lengthy telephonings with French, German, Italian and Scandinavian publishers, showing what they want for their editions” (Gilbert, Winston Churchill and Emery Reves: Correspondance). In 1937, he befriended Churchill, becoming his literary agent, and used his news agency, Cooperation Press Service, to place Churchill’s articles on current world events in major newspapers across Europe. Though Churchill’s writing formerly cast a limited global presence, by 1939 Reves had helped place Churchill’s work on the front pages of thirty newspapers, with 750 different outlets annually, representing approximately fifteen to twenty million readers in twenty-five languages. Referring to Reves in 1940, Churchill wrote to the British Minister of Information, “I can speak from personal experience of his altogether exceptional abilities and connections,” and characterized him as “a most brilliant writer” who “holds our views very strongly.” Official Churchill historian, Sir Martin Gilbert, in 1997 published an extensive record of correspondence between Reeves and Churchill from 1937-64, in his book Winston Churchill and Emery Reeves. After Churchill was elected Prime Minister in 1940, and took office that May, Reves was sent to New York in February of 1941 to help build up the British propaganda organization in both North and South America. Reves described his mission as convincing the West that Nazi aggression seen in Europe would continue in the Americas and that the principles of non-intervention were “principles of a lost world, which lead every nation to the abyss.” After the war, he purchased the rights to publish Churchill’s war memoirs, titled Memoirs of the Second World War, outside the United Kingdom and Churchill’s extensive four volume History of the English-Speaking Peoples. Though considered a risk by many at the time, both sold widely. He made significant personal contributions to Churchill’s highly successful six volume Memoirs of the Second World War, and the exceptional international network he had developed since the 1930’s was the key to the book’s outstanding success. Significantly increasing Churchill’s wealth, and retaining a roughly 10-15% commission, in the late 1940’s, Reves negotiated an impressive $1.4 million in the United States, and 555,000 pounds for Churchill in the United Kingdom for the rights to Memoirs of the Second World War, with the resulting royalties becoming equally impressive. Each are near fine in the original dust jackets. volume one lacking the front free endpaper. An exceptional example with noted provenance.

"Churchill’s last great work was published nearly 20 years after he penned its first draft in the late 1930s, just after wrapping up [the biography of] Marlborough. This enabled him to utilize the literary team he had assembled for the biography, to which he added dozens of outlines he had solicited from scholars In its final form the original single volume evolved to four, each of which was published simultaneously in Britain, the USA and Canada— a first for Churchill’s works" (Langworth, 312).