This Item Has Been Sold
MY EARLY LIFE: A Roving Commission
-First English Edition-
1930
First English Edition (First State/First Binding)
Thornton Butterworth Ltd. [London]
Biblio: (Cohen A91.1.b) (Woods A37a)
8vo (392 pages, with photo frontispiece, maps, plans, one folding map, 16 tipped-in illustrations)
Hardcover (with Dust Jacket) [Rough pink cloth]
Item Number: 211534
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
This is a very good copy of the First Printing of the First English edition in the First State Binding (per Cohen) with the three-line cover title block and a half-title list of Churchill works that omits Volume I of THE WORLD CRISIS.
Bound in rough pink cloth, this copy is unevenly faded but retains a good deal of vivid color on the front and rear faces. The notoriously fade-prone spine is only moderately faded here, well-rounded and healthy without any fraying. The binding is crisp, the contents are fine and unfoxed, with two leaves (pages 9-11) roughly separated. There is a vintage ink gift inscription hand-dated “Xmas 1930” on the front free endpaper.
Overall, a very nice example.