A ROVING COMMISSION: My Early Life
-Signed First American Edition-
1930
First American Edition
Charles Scribner’s Sons [New York]
Biblio: (Cohen A91.2.a)(Woods A37b)
16mo (378 pages, photo frontis, maps, illustrated.)
Hardcover (without Dust Jacket) [Red cloth]
Item Number: 214318
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Collector's Guide
My Early Life is the only volume of personal memoirs that Churchill ever wrote. It is, arguably, his most entertaining book and an excellent entry point into his writing; a vivacious memoir of youth and wayward school boyhood. Published in the U.S. under the title A Roving Commission, the book has been endlessly re-issued in a variety of editions. True first editions, however, remain quite rare.
Description
This First Printing of the First American edition, without dust jacket, is inscribed and signed on the half-title page: “To Tom Pickhardt, from Winston S. Churchill, Christmas 1931.”
THOMAS PICKHARDT was the son of Dr. Otto C. Pickhardt, the renowned New York City surgeon who examined Winston Churchill at Lenox Hill Hospital on the night of December 13, 1931, after Churchill was struck by a car on Fifth Avenue while searching for Bernard Baruch’s apartment building. Dr. Pickhardt became a friend and frequent correspondent of Churchill’s, and apparently had this volume signed for his son some very few days following Churchill’s discharge from the hospital.
The Scribner First Edition “A” is present on the copyright page here, as called for. The binding is square and tight. The cloth and the gilt lettering are still fairly bright on the front face; well-faded on the spine, as per usual. The contents are fine, save for a gentle rear hinge break.