A ROVING COMMISSION
-Probable Pirated Second American Edition-
1940
Second American Edition (Pirated Printing?)
Charles Scribners Sons [NY]
Biblio: (Cohen A91.5.?) (Woods A37c)
8vo (377 pages)
Hardcover without Dust Jacket [Midnight-blue cloth]
Item Number: 212211
$30.00
Collector's Guide
My Early Life is the only volume of personal memoirs that Churchill ever wrote. It is, arguably, his most entertaining book and an excellent entry point into his writing; a vivacious memoir of youth and wayward school boyhood. Published in the U.S. under the title A Roving Commission, the book has been endlessly re-issued in a variety of editions. True first editions, however, remain quite rare.
Description
An oddity, probably a pirated printing of the wartime Second American edition, with the new Introduction by Dorothy Thompson. The book does not conform physically at all to this edition, it is smaller, narrower, with cheaper paper that has browned with age. There is no mention of the publisher Scribner anywhere and the publication page is literally typed. The spine has faded considerably and there is a lengthy ink gift inscription on the front free endpaper.
A good reading copy only but an interesting one.