Onwards to Victory

Descripción:

This is a superior copy of the U.S. first edition, first printing of Churchill's fourth war speeches volume, 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.For this volume, Churchill's U.S. publisher, Little, Brown and Company, proposed "The Year of the Climax." Happily, Churchill considered Onwards to Victory "a very much more suitable title" (Cohen, Volume I, A194.1.a, p.647). This first U.S. edition, only printing, is impressively well-preserved, better than near fine in a very good plus dust jacket, quite elusive thus. The red cloth binding is beautifully bright, clean, square, and tight with sharp corners. We note only trivial wrinkling to the spine ends. The contents are likewise notably clean with no previous ownership marks and no spotting. Even the page edges are free of any soiling or spotting. The dust jacket is unclipped, retaining the original "$3.50" front flap price, and shows only fractional chips to the spine ends and the upper edge of the front panel. Quite unusual for the edition is a bright, unfaded red spine panel. The white rear panel shows some modest overall soiling, the illustrated front panel remains strikingly bright. The dust jacket is protected beneath a removable, clear, archival cover.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. But Churchill's preeminence as a historical figure owes most to his indispensable leadership during the Second World War, when his trenchant, soaring, and defiant rhetoric sustained his countrymen and inspired the free world. Of Churchill, Edward R. Murrow said: "He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle." Between 1941 and 1946, Churchill's war speeches were published in seven individual volumes in both British and U.S. editions. The U.S. first editions were generally published in smaller numbers and are considerably more scarce today than their British counterparts.Reference: Cohen A194.2, Woods/ICS A101(b), Langworth p.224. N° de ref. del artículo 007646

Denunciar este artículo

Detalles bibliográficos

Título: Onwards to Victory
Editorial: Little, Brown and Company, Boston
Año de publicación: 1944
Encuadernación: Hardcover
Condición de la sobrecubierta: Sobrecubierta no Incluida
Edición: First edition, only printing.