THE SECOND WORLD WAR [Unabridged]
-Reprint Society Set-
1950-1956
The Reprint Society Edition (Later Printings)
The Reprint Society [London]
Biblio: (Cohen A240.6(I-VI]) (Woods A123e)
16mo
Hardcover in Dust Jackets [Off-white cloth embossed with facsimile signature in red]
Item Number: 214521
$200.00
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 is a very good set of Later Printings, in the rare original glassine jackets, which are edge-chipped but intact. The cloth is fresh, the red spine labels are bright. The contents are fine, unfoxed and largely unopened.
Reset in smaller type, with author corrections added, this handsome unabridged edition was published in the U.K. by the Reprint Society just as the initial trade publication was completed. It remains a lovely way to read this monumental work.