Onwards to Victory

Descripción

This is the British first edition, first printing, of the fourth volume of Churchill's war speeches, containing Churchill's speeches from 1943. Here the oratory takes a more positive tone as Churchill and the Allies begin to anticipate victory. A little before mid-year, on 19 May 1943 Churchill gave his second address to the U.S. Congress.Seventeen long months of war had passed since his first, just after Pearl Harbor. Churchill cautioned, invoking, for his American audience, the grim memory of the prolonged outcome of the U.S. Civil War, "No one after Gettysburg doubted which way the dread balance of war would incline. Yet far more blood was shed after the Union victory at Gettysburg than in all the fighting which went before." That theme of maintaining the momentum of urgency repeated throughout the year. On 9 November 1943 Churchill told the audience at the Lord Mayor s Day Luncheon "We must not lose for a moment the sense and consciousness of urgency and crisis which must continue to drive us, even though we are in the fifth year of war… victory will certainly be won. But that does not mean that our war task is done." Late November saw Churchill celebrate his 69th birthday at the Teheran conference with Roosevelt and Stalin. This first edition, first printing is very good in a good first printing dust jacket. The blue cloth binding is tight and clean with bright spine gilt, though with a mild forward lean and some shelf wear to extremities, including bumped corners. The contents are quite clean and bright for the edition; we find no previous ownership marks and no appreciable spotting. Dust soling to the top edges is the only reportable detraction. The dust jacket is unclipped, retaining the publisher s original price on the lower front flap, and substantially complete, with only minor chip losses to the spine ends and flap fold corners. The orange and blue hues are unfaded, bright with no color shift between the spine and front panel. The jacket does show some overall wear, scuffing, and soiling. It is protected beneath a removable, clear, archival cover. Few books are as emblematic of Churchill s literary and leadership gifts as his war speeches volumes. During his long public life, Winston Churchill played many roles worthy of note - Member of Parliament for more than half a century, soldier and war correspondent, author of scores of books, ardent social reformer, combative cold warrior, Nobel Prize winner, painter. But Churchill's preeminence as a historical figure owes most to his indispensable leadership during the Second World War, when his soaring and defiant oratory sustained his countrymen and inspired the free world. Of Churchill, Edward R. Murrow said: "He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle." When Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953, it was partly "…for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values." Between 1941 and 1946, Churchill's war speeches were published in seven individual volumes. The British first editions are visually striking, but were printed on cheap "War Economy Standard" paper, bound in coarse cloth, and wrapped in bright, fragile dust jackets. They proved highly susceptible to spotting, soiling, and fading, so the passage of time has been hard on most surviving first editions. Reference: Cohen A194.1.a, Woods/ICS A101(a.1), Langworth p.223. N° de ref. del artículo 007644

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