THE SECOND WORLD WAR
-First American Edition Set with Tipped-In Signature of Winston Churchill
1948-1953
First American Edition Set
Houghton Mifflin Company [Boston]
Biblio: (Cohen A240.3[I-VI]) (Woods A123aa)
8vo (Maps, diagrams and tables throughout.)
Hardcover without Dust Jackets [Red cloth]
Item Number: 214184
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Collector's Guide
The Second World War, also known as Winston Churchill’s War Memoirs, won Churchill the Nobel Prize for literature in 1953. Published in six volumes that appeared over six years, the books each came out first in the U.S. under the following titles: THE GATHERING STORM (Volume I/1948), THEIR FINEST HOUR (Volume II/1949), THE GRAND ALLIANCE (Volume III/1950), THE HINGE OF FATE (Volume IV/1950), CLOSING THE RING (Volume V/1951) and TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY (Volume VI/1953).
The ensuing English editions, issued within months of the American, contained numerous corrections and even a few additional maps. The English edition is therefore considered more definitive, though today the American edition may be rarer. The set was simultaneously published by the Book-of-the-Month-Club in America, printed on the same presses as the first editions, and thus can easily be confused with them. An excellent one-volume abridgment was published in 1959; largely the work of Churchill’s research assistant, Denis Kelly, though Churchill did contribute an interesting epilogue covering the years 1945-1957.
Description
This First American edition set, from the library of naval historian S.E. Morison, contains a blank sheet signed in ink: “Winston S. Churchill,” tipped-in on the front free endpaper of Volume II, together with a typed presentation note on headed Chartwell notepaper signed in ink by Churchill’s Private Secretary Anthony Montague Browne, dated 18 February, 1960:
Dear Admiral Morison,
Sir Winston Churchill has asked me to thank you for your letter, and to send the enclosed sheet which he has signed and which he hopes will meet the case for pasting in Volume I of THE SECOND WORLD WAR. Sir Winston asks me to send you his very good wishes and remembrances.
Yours sincerely, Anthony Montague Browne
Private Secretary.
All six volumes are First American editions without dust jackets, in very good condition, with still-bright golden topstains and spine headbands, as required. The spine type has dulled just a bit with age and there is a slight scuff mark to Volume VI spine. Else fine.
SAMUEL ELIOT MORISON (1887-1976) was a U.S. admiral and historian who won Pulitzer Prizes for his biography of Christopher Columbus, “Admiral of the Ocean Sea,” and for “John Paul Jones: A Sailor’s Biography.” In 1942, he was commissioned to write a history of U.S. naval operations in World War II, which was published in 15 volumes between 1947 and 1962.
The books all bear discreet ink presentation inscriptions from Morison to his son, Larry. Volume I bears a further ink gift inscription on the front free endpaper: “To Catherine and Sam, with fondest thoughts always, Ernest Eller.”
Ernest McNeill Eller (1903-1992) was a U.S. Rear Admiral who served as Assistant Naval Attaché in London and as Observer with the British Home Fleet from September 1940 until May 1941, when he was ordered to the USS Saratoga as gunnery officer. Eller was on board that aircraft carrier when it made a high-speed run from San Diego to Pearl Harbor immediately after the Japanese attack, carrying plane and pilot replacements. Eller was also on board the Saratoga when it was torpedoed in January 1942 in the Marshall and Midway Island area. He survived to serve for three years on the staff of Admiral Nimitz, Commander in Chief, United States Pacific Fleet.