War Memoirs of David Lloyd George.

LLOYD GEORGE, David.

$1,500.00

Item Number: 135372

London: Odams Press Limited, .

First editions, early printings of the first two volumes in Lloyd George’s autobiography, with an autographed letter signed of David Lloyd George laid in. Octavo, original cloth. Near fine in very good dust jackets. On Lloyd George’s Downing Street letterhead, the letter reads in full, “March 5th. Dear Mr. Grossmith Thank you so much for the chocolates last night. It was kind of you to send them. We thoroughly enjoyed the play. I have seen it several times, & we often hear it on the electro phone here in Downing Street. With renewed thanks from me & my daughter & son & future daughter in-law all in the room last night. Yours v sincerely, Dd. Lloyd George.” Rare in the original dust jackets.

David Lloyd George was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for leading the United Kingdom during the First World War, social reform policies including the National Insurance Act 1911, his role in the Paris Peace Conference, negotiating the establishment of the Irish Free State, disestablishment of the Church of England in Wales and support of Welsh devolution in his early career. "Lloyd George made a greater impact on British public life than any other 20th-cent. statesman. He laid the foundations of what later became the welfare state, and put a progressive income tax system at the centre of government finance. He also left his mark on the system of government by enlarging the scope of the prime minister's role. He was acclaimed, not without reason, as the 'Man Who Won the War'. ... he was blamed by many Liberals for destroying their party in 1918, hated in the Labour movement for his handling of industrial issues after 1918, and disparaged by Conservatives for his radicalism" (Martin Pugh). "In any poll of modern historians Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George would emerge as the two most renowned prime ministers during the past century" (John Shepherd).