MY AFRICAN JOURNEY
-First American Edition (Third Issue)-
1909
First American Edition (Third Issue)
George H. Doran [NY]
Biblio: (Cohen A27.6) (Woods A12ab)
8vo (242 pages, with 60 photographs, 3 maps, tissue protected frontis photo.)
Hardcover (with Dust Jacket) [Reddish-Brown cloth]
Item Number: 13757
$1,000.00
Collector's Guide
My African Journey is Winston Churchill’s travelogue account of his whirlwind tour of Britain’s East-Africa territories as Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies; his first official government office. The book features eloquent and perceptive observations about Africa, and much big-game hunting, with young Churchill as guide. The first English edition is particularly coveted for its handsome cover woodcut of the author posed beside a trophy rhinoceros. The more plainly-bound American edition, which utilized English first edition sheets, has no woodcut on its brownish-red buckram cover, yet it is the rarer volume.
Description
This is the far rarer First American edition in unusually fine condition; the Third Issue, according to bibliographer Ronald Cohen, with an undated cancel title page stating “George H. Doran Company, New York” as the publisher, and no publisher line on the verso.
The unfaded cloth retains its reddish-brown tint and the spine type is significantly less faded than usual. The upper edge of the front joint has a beginning tear, which seems to be the common weak spot for all copies of this edition that we have seen. The binding is slightly cocked but the contents are clean and unfoxed.
Absolutely unique thus.