DAY 3 OF “TWELVETIDE” CATALOGUE HIGHLIGHTS
Over these twelve days of “Twelvetide” we want to share with you 12 highlights from our new 40th Anniversary catalogue.
#3
FROM THE LIBRARY OF SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL
“THE EPIC OF JUTLAND”
Winston Churchill had an enormous library at Chartwell but he did not, in fact, employ a bookplate. This, according to Sir Martin Gilbert, Churchill’s official biographer, who informed us years ago that Churchill’s son, Randolph, upon his father’s death in 1965, printed up bookplates in his father’s name (and another set in his own name). Randolph then set upon his father’s library and slapped these bookplates into just about every volume. Mission accomplished, Randolph proceeded to sell off his father’s library.
THE EPIC OF JUTLAND, about an epic World War I naval battle, was written by Churchill’s cousin, Shane Leslie. This First English Edition copy, without dust jacket, is a Presentation Copy from Leonie Leslie –Winston Churchill’s aunt, Jennie Churchill’s sister, and Shane Leslie’s, mother. Her ink inscription on the front free endpaper reads: “Winston from Leonie. Nov. 1930.”
The bookplates of both Winston Churchill and Randolph Churchill are affixed to the front pastedown.
On October 22, 1930, Leonie Leslie wrote to her nephew: “Dearest Winston, What an angel you are to have sent yr book – I am enjoying every line of of it. How the early part carries me back…” The book she refers to would have been MY EARLY LIFE, then just-published. Obviously Aunt Leonie reciprocated almost immediately with this copy of her son’s latest work.
More tomorrow.