The World Crisis, Volume II of the first two-volume set in the publisher's original shipping box

Winston S. Churchill

Published by Odhams Press Limited, London, 1939

About this Item

This is a rare time capsule for collectors - the second volume of the first two-volume set of Churchill's history of the First World War still housed in the publisher's original shipping box. The box itself is fully intact including the original closing flap, fully enfolding the book within since it was originally shipped to a "P.R. Brown" in Kent according to the hand-addressed original shipping label printed "BOOKS WITH CARE". The box shows some toning and staining, but both the original shipping label and postage sticker remain fully intact. The blue binding of the book within remains perfectly clean and vividly bright with no appreciable wear. The cost of its long residence in the cardboard shipping box is spotting to page edges. This is more than compensated by bright, crisp contents and strikingly bright blue top stain. Churchill was in a special position to write the history of the First World War, which nearly cost him both his political and corporeal lives and in which he played such a critical, controversial, and varied role. First Lord of the Admiralty from 1911 until 1915, after the Dardanelles disaster, Churchill was scapegoated and forced to resign. He spent political exile as a lieutenant colonel of a battalion in the trenches. Before war's end, Churchill was exonerated and rejoined the Government, foreshadowing the political isolation and restoration he would experience nearly two decades later leading up to the Second World War. Despite Churchill's political recovery, the stigma of the Dardanelles lingered. Hence Churchill had more than just literary and financial compulsion to write his history. Churchill titled his history The World Crisis, which was originally published in six volumes between 1923 and 1931. This first two-volume set was published in 1939, the year the Second World War began and Churchill returned to the Admiralty and to war. Though only two volumes, the set contained not only the complete unabridged text of the original first four volumes (which covered the war years 1911-1918), but also the revisions and new material from the 1931 abridgement. This was a handsome and substantial edition, bound in blue leatherette cloth with a blind stamped bust of Churchill and his gilt signature on the cover, gilt titles and rules on the spine, and blue top stain. Volumes still housed in the publisher's original shipping boxes are quite scarce. Reference: Cohen A69.11.c, Woods/ICS A31(fa), Langworth p.121.

Seller Inventory # 007591

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The World Crisis, Volume II of the first two-volume set in the publisher's original shipping box
• Publisher: Odhams Press Limited, London
• Publication Date: 1939
• Binding: Hardcover