The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Alone, 1932-1940.

MANCHESTER, William.

Item Number: 138861

Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1988.

First edition of the author’s classic work. Octavo, original cloth. Presentation copy, lengthily inscribed by the author in the year of publication on the half-title page, “For Joe and Kit Reed who do so many astonishing things so astonishingly well – With warm regards, now and always – Wm Manchester Bill Wesleyan I X 88.” The recipients were close friends of Manchester’s. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket.

In this powerful biography, the middle volume of William Manchester’s critically acclaimed trilogy, Winston Churchill wages his defining campaign: not against Hitler’s war machine but against his own reluctant countrymen. Manchester contends that even more than his leadership in combat, Churchill’s finest hour was the uphill battle against appeasement. As Parliament received with jeers and scorn his warnings against the growing Nazi threat, Churchill stood alone—only to be vindicated by history as a beacon of hope amid the gathering storm. “The best Churchill biography [for] this generation . . . Even readers who know the basic story will find much that is new" (Newsweek).