MARLBOROUGH: His Life and Times
-First American Edition Set in Slipcases and Dust Jackets-
1933-38
First American Edition Set
Charles Scribners Sons [New York]
Biblio: (Cohen A97.4[I-IV.a/V.b/VI.a) (Woods A40b)
8vo (2,500+ pages, illustrated with portraits,maps, plans.)
Hardcover in Dust Jackets [Green cloth]
Item Number: 14431
$4,500.00
Collector's Guide
Marlborough is Winston Churchill’s majestic biography of John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough; soldier, statesmen, hard-headed Churchillian ancestor. Initially published in England as a lush four-volume set and then as a somewhat less deluxe six-volume set in America, it was subsequently issued in an unabridged two-volume edition and a single-volume abridgment.
Description
This is a very good First American edition set, all volumes in their rare, correct dust jackets, as issued, in the original printed slipcases.
[With apologies for the complicated lineage:] Scribners published in the U.S. the English Volume I divided into two books (designated as Volumes I & II) and slipcased as a set. Scribners did the same with the English Volume II (designated Volumes III & IV) as a slipcased set. All four books were issued in plain white dust jackets, printed green. Scribners then published in the U.S. the English Volumes III and IV as Volumes V and VI, respectively; Volume V in a red and white dust jacket, Volume VI in a blue and gold dust jacket. Upon issuing the final volume (VI), Scribners then rewrapped the set uniformly in the final-blue and gold jacket and boxed the six together in a simple green card slipcase with a printed top-label.
Both slipcases are impressively bright, if very lightly scuffed and separating just a bit along the edges. The white jackets here are all clean on their faces and intact. Volumes I and II have darkened with age and are faintly edge-chipped at the spine heads, with fractional loss of approximately one-inch along the lower spine of Volume II. They are otherwise in very good condition. The jackets of Volumes III and IV are clean and very bright but do have fractional losses at the spine heads that have been filled out with archival paper backing to each verso, as well as a triangular closed tear on the rear face of Volume III and a faint hint of scattered foxing to Volume IV. Volume V is price-clipped; Volume VI is unclipped. The contents of all six books are fine. Laid-into Volume V is the publisher’s Errata slip, de-marking it as the rare Second State of the First edition.