DAY 8 OF “TWELVETIDE” CATALOGUE HIGHLIGHTS

Here is an intriguing obscurity among the 12 highlights that we are sharing over these twelve days of “Twelvetide” from our new 40^th Anniversary catalogue .

#8 

A UNIQUE WORLD WAR I RECRUITMENT PAMPHLET
“To A Victorious Conclusion!
The Prime Minister’s Appeal To The Nation”

The minutiae of Churchillian paper ephemera could fill a book, or deaden a dinner party. Everywhere one looks in British history throughout the 20^thCentury, glimmers of Winston Churchill appear — in speeches that he delivered, journeys that he made, dinners that he attended. Many of these glimmers are reflected in obscure pamphlets, programs and photographs from the period that collectors often prize.

Here is one that we have never seen before, a World War I recruitment pamphlet from 1914, “To A Victorious Conclusion! The Prime Minister’s Appeal To The Nation,” containing speeches delivered at the Guildhall, London, on the 4^th of September by then-Prime Minister H.H. Asquith, future-Prime Minister Arthur Bonar Law, former-Prime Minister Arthur Balfour, and Winston Churchill.

To add to the fun, though the impeccable Cohen Churchill bibliography notes two printings of this pamphlet — the first of 50,000 copies in October 1914 (recorded with the dated parliamentary warrant line: 10/14), the second of 100,000 copies in November 1914 (dated 11/14) — this copy is dated 9/14 and must supersede both as the true variant First Edition.

We think.

More tomorrow.