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This full set of four British first edition, first printings in dust jackets is inscribed on the Volume I title page in two lines in black ink: "Inscribed by | Winston S. Churchill". This British first trade edition of Winston Churchill s monumental biography of his great ancestor, John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough, is physically impressive, each thick volume bound with beveled edges and the Marlborough coat of arms gilt on the front cover, the profusely illustrated contents featuring headbands and gilt top edges. Unfortunately, the plum cloth binding of Volumes I-III proved highly susceptible to sun fading. (A different, more fade-resistant dye was used in Volume IV.) Without dust jackets, Volumes I-III are nearly always faded and jacketed first editions are scarce. Particularly scarce are first printing dust jackets for Volumes I & II. Later impression Volume I & II dust jackets state either "2nd Impression" or "3rd Impression" on the lower front flap beside the price, cautioning collectors to be wary of clipped jackets. No such problem applies to Volumes III & IV, which each had only a single printing.The dust jackets themselves proved highly susceptible to soiling and toning.This set features very good or better volumes in very good minus or better dust jackets. The inscribed volume I is square and tight with sharp corners, only trivial shelf wear to extremities, and a bright binding that shows no color shift between the covers and spine. A tiny strip of sunning at the spine heel corresponds to trivial dust jacket losses and the covers show some minor blemishes. The contents retain a crisp, unread feel. Trivial spotting appears confined to the prelims. Differential toning to the endpapers corresponding to dust jacket flaps confirms that this copy has spent life jacketed. A 4.25 inch closed tear to the left side of the title page near the gutter has been expertly mended with Japanese paper discretely applied to the title page verso. The unclipped, first printing Volume I dust jacket shows even spine toning, fractional loss to the spine ends and flap fold corners, and moderate soiling to the blank rear face.The sole previous ownership mark (present in each of the four volumes) is the small, printed plate of "James B. Meriwether | Columbia South Carolina" affixed to the upper left front pastedown. Meriwether (1928-2007) was a respected University of South Carolina academic, author, and authority on William Faulkner. His wide circle of literary friendships included writers such as Faulkner, Shelby Foote, James Gould Cozzens, and P.G. Wodehouse, and his correspondence with some spanned fifty years. His numerous awards included a Guggenheim and two Fulbrights. The balance of the set Volumes II, III & IV are square, clean, bright, and tight first printing volumes with no color shift to the spines other than trivial sunning to a few spine extremities corresponding to tiny dust jacket losses. The contents of Volumes II-IV all retain a crisp feel with light spotting primarily confined to the first and final leaves and fore edges. The dust jackets including Volume II are unclipped, retaining their original lower front flap prices and confirming that Volume II is first printing. All three jackets show fractional loss to the spine ends and corners, spine toning, and a few moisture stains to the spines, worst at the lower left heel of Volume II. All four dust jackets are protected beneath clear, removable, archival covers.Churchill s greatest work of biography, Marlborough took 10 years of research and writing. The final volume was published almost exactly one year before the outbreak of the Second World War and just twenty months before Churchill became wartime prime minister. When Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953, it was partly for "mastery of historical and biographical description" displayed in Marlborough. Reference: Cohen A97.2(I-IV).a, Woods/ICS A40(aa), Langworth p.166.
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