ARMS AND THE COVENANT
-English Wartime "Cheap" Edition in Variant Dust Jacket-
1940
First English Edition
George G. Harrap & Co. [London]
Biblio: (Cohen A107.3) (Woods A44a)
8vo (466 pages)
Hardcover (with Dust Jacket) [Dark blue cloth]
Item Number: 209877
$2,500.00
Collector's Guide
Arms and the Covenant captures Churchill’s initial alarms against Hitler and the Nazis in forty-one prophetic pre-war speeches delivered from 1928-1938, edited by his son Randolph. Published in the U.S. under the title While England Slept, the book, according to FDR, sat on his White House nightstand in 1938.
Description
Unsold copies of the first printing of ARMS AND THE COVENANT were re-issued as this so-called “Cheap Edition” by Harrap in June 1940. The books were untouched, the only new feature was a new dust jacket, printed a vivid yellow with deep red type.
This is a very good copy in an unclipped dust jacket that remains bright on the front face with light fading to the spine. The book itself is crisp, tight and unfaded. The contents are fine, with a tiny vintage bookshop sticker on the front pastedown and a discreetly inked former-owner’s name hand-dated “July 1940” on the front free endpaper. The fore-edges are foxed and there is the usual flap shadow on the half-title. Else fine.