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 (without Dust Jacket) [Rough pink cloth]
Item Number: 211534
$1,500.00
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
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.