CHURCHILL, Winston S.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Marlborough. First editions, from the library of future prime minister Anthony Eden, with volumes III and IV presentation copies inscribed by Churchill on the front free endpapers, respectively, "Anthony Eden from Winston S. Churchill October 1936" (the month of publication) and "To Anthony from Winston S. C August 1938" (the month before publication); both volumes further annotated by Eden.An association copy of the highest order: Churchill and Eden were the closest political allies of their generation, their careers intertwined through the decisive decades before, during, and after the Second World War. The presentation of these volumes in 1936 and 1938 is especially significant. Churchill's biography of his ancestor, the first Duke of Marlborough, whose Grand Alliance checked the ambitions of Louis XIV, "took its place at once among the classics of historical writing" and, as the ODNB observes, became "a source of inspiration to Churchill in his campaign against appeasement". At precisely the time these volumes appeared, Eden was one of the few senior Conservatives who, like Churchill, opposed appeasement and would resign as foreign secretary rather than acquiesce in it.Eden immediately recognized the work's contemporary relevance. Thanking Churchill for volume III, he wrote that it was "splendidly stimulating reading" and praised its "appositeness... to our present day problems", adding that Marlborough restored "a sense of proportion" to the international crises of the 1

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