ARMS AND THE COVENANT
-English Wartime "Cheap" Edition in Variant Dust Jacket-
1940
First English "Cheap"Edition
George G. Harrap & Co. [London]
Biblio: (Cohen A107.3) (Woods A44a)
8vo (466 pages, with frontis photo)
Hardcover (with Dust Jacket) [Dark blue cloth]
Item Number: 14285
$2,250.00
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 Churchill’s publisher Harrap in June 1940, a month after he became Prime Minister. The only new feature was a new dust jacket, printed a vivid yellow with deep red type. This is a very good copy, with an unclipped dust jacket that is bright on the front face, age-darkened and edge-chipped on the rear face, and toned across a spine that was at one time misfolded. The book itself is virtually mint, the cloth a rich and unfaded dark blue, including the notoriously fade-prone spine. The binding is tight, the corners square. The contents are fine and unfoxed, with a tiny vintage bookshop sticker on the front pastedown and the usual toning to the half-title from the frontis photo.
A wartime rarity.