My Early Life; Thoughts and Adventures; Great Contemporaries; Step by Step.

CHURCHILL, Winston S.

$17,500.00

Item Number: 131601

London: Odhams Press Limited, 1936-1939.

First Odhams press edition of four of Churchill’s best-known works. Octavo, 4 volumes, original cloth with gilt titles and tooling to the spine, illustrated. Presentation set, inscribed by Churchill to his financial adviser on the front free endpaper of My Early Life, “To T.E.R. Harris from Winston S. Churchill Christmas 1947” and initialed by Churchill in the three other volumes. The recipient, T.E.R. Harris was Churchill’s financial adviser at the Pall Mall branch of Lloyds bank in London from 1943 to 1948. For many years Churchill relied heavily on his press articles and book deals to assuage his financial worries and often turned to Harris for advice. One of these occasions was in 1943, when Churchill was negotiating the film rights to Marlborough with Sir Alexander Korda and MGM. As the bidding was being pushed up, he sought tax advice from Lloyds and Harris was consulted. Harris happened to be acquainted with famed film producer Filippo Del Giudice, who finally secured the rights to the film for a staggering £50,000. Although Marlborough was ultimately never produced, the deal completely changed Churchill’s finances and allowed him to open negotiations to buy back the rights to the History of the English-Speaking Peoples. Each are near fine in near fine dust jackets. An exceptional association.

Winston Churchill, in addition to his careers of soldier and politician, was a prolific writer under the pen name 'Winston S. Churchill'. After being commissioned into the 4th Queen's Own Hussars in 1895, Churchill gained permission to observe the Cuban War of Independence, and sent war reports to The Daily Graphic. He continued his war journalism in British India, at the Siege of Malakand, then in the Sudan during the Mahdist War and in southern Africa during the Second Boer War. Churchill's fictional output included one novel and a short story, but his main output comprised non-fiction. After he was elected as an MP, over 130 of his speeches or parliamentary answers were also published in pamphlets or booklets; many were subsequently published in collected editions. Churchill received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 "for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values".