THE MAJOR WORKS OF SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL
[1974]
(Cohen AA2) (ICSAA2)
While the Library of Imperial History was setting about the almost impossible task of finding and publishing Churchill’s entire canon, the Diner’s Club in association with Fine Art International Ltd. and the Hamlyn Publishing Group began a slightly more modest project to celebrate the Centenary of his birth: a fine edition of twenty-five “major works” from Lord Randolph Churchill through the History of the English-Speaking Peoples. The sets were produced and handsomely bound by Edito-Service SA in Geneva. Like the L.I.H. collection they did not sell out, and odd volumes were still on sale at Chartwell in the mid-1980s. Sold on subscription, to which not everyone stuck, they are often encountered individually today. They are the only collected edition besides the Collected Works.
-Richard M. Langworth
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Editions
Centenary First Edition
Cohen AA2 / ICSAA2
Publisher: The Diner’s Club, London 1974
Twenty-five volumes
Bound in full maroon morocco blocked gilt with initials “WSC” and elaborate border on top board. On spines are three black leather labels for the author, volume title and “CENTENARY FIRST EDITION”; the “WSC” is also blocked on the spine along with two empty square panels. All page edges gilt, inside edges of boards tooled gilt, black cloth page markers, maroon moire cloth endpapers, head- and footbands. Each volume contains an identical frontispiece, the Karsh “Angry Lion” 1941 photograph, tipped in opposite the title page.
Appraisal
There is less demand for these than the Collected Works because they include fewer volumes of Churchill’s books.
Though smaller, the Diner’s Club collection is truer to the original texts than the Collected Works, since all but The Second World War were offprinted from readily available first or early impressions. Even The Second World War was derived from a popular current edition, which although reset was based on Churchill’s final corrected text.
True Texts
For the benefit of scholars and researchers with access to these volumes, I list the sources of the various texts. (Pagination coincides with first or impressions.)
Lord Randolph Churchill (I-II): offprinted from the First Edition.
My Early Life: offprinted from the First Edition.
The World Crisis (I-V): offprinted from First Editions, but omitting The Eastern Front.
Marlborough (I-IV) offprinted from the 1947 Harrap two-volume edition, but re-divided back into four volumes.
War Speeches (I-III): offprinted from the 1952 Definitive Edition with the same pagination; but this edition omits many speeches published in the original seven volumes.
History of the English Speaking Peoples (I-IV): offprinted from the First Edition.
Altered Texts
(Pagination does not coincide with first or early editions.)
The Second World War (I-VI): printed from the same plates as, the Heron Edition (ICS A123m), which was also being produced at this time by Edito-Service SA. The Heron illustrations are also included, but in groups of one or two per volume, not interspersed, like the latter edition, in one group per volume.
OBASA ESCOGIDAS [SELECTED WORKS]
(ICS AA3)
Publisher: Bibliotech, Premios Nobel, Madrid, 1957
A recent discovery, this collection includes Pensamientos y Aventuras, Grandes Contemporaneous and La Force de la Victoria. As I have not examined a copy I am not sure what the last title contains (RML).
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