This Item Has Been Sold
MY AFRICAN JOURNEY
-Signed First English Edition-
1908
First English Edition
Hodder & Stoughton [London]
Biblio: (Cohen A27.1) (Woods A12aa)
8vo (242 pages, with 61 photographs, 3 maps, tissue protected frontis photo, 18-page rear publisher’s catalogue.)
Hardcover [Red pictorial cloth]
Item Number: 209548
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
Very few signed First English edition copies of MY AFRICAN JOURNEY have ever surfaced, for reasons that are not entirely clear. The few that have appeared were signed on later dates usually far removed from the book’s original publication.
This is the finest and rarest example to come to light certainly in our history; signed and dated in ink on the day of publication: “From Winston S. Churchill 1 Dec. 1908.”
The book itself is in unusually fresh condition, bright on both faces and far less faded on the spine than usual. The binding is square and tight, with a beautifully rounded spine. There is light foxing throughout, including to the front free endpaper, which is the signature page.
Minor caveats for a signed volume of historic proportions.