SECRET SESSION SPEECHES
-Signed Presentation First English Edition Inscribed to Churchill's Personal Secretary-
1946
First English Edition
Cassell and Co. [London]
Biblio: (Cohen A227.2.a) (Woods A114b)
8vo (96 pages, plus sixteen photographs)
Hardcover in Dust Jacket [Blue cloth]
Item Number: 212855
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Collector's Guide
Secret Session Speeches, the seventh and final volume of Churchill’s collected World War II speeches, contains six declassified orations first delivered by Churchill in secret wartime sessions of the House of Commons. Texts are not always verbatim transcripts. The initial speech is a partial excerpt reproduced in typescript from Churchill’s original pages. The American issue preceded the English and is the true first.
Description
This very good copy of the First English edition, in an unclipped dust jacket, is inscribed and signed on the front free endpaper to one of Churchill’s premiere post-war personal secretaries: “From Winston S. Churchill To Miss Lettice Marston 1946.”
The dust jacket is considerably foxed and exhibits shelfwear but is otherwise intact and well-preserved. The book and contents are fine.
LETTICE MARSTON was one of the Churchill secretaries who took down his war memoirs as he dictated them. She also organized and accompanied Churchill on several of his post-war foreign excursions. When Churchill was returned to Downing Street in 1951, she took charge of all secretarial matters relating to the war memoirs project from her base at his residence in Hyde Park Gate. She, moreover, oversaw Churchill’s constituency work for his parliamentary seat at Woodford, which she visited frequently to manage his affairs and liaise with constituency officers. In 1953 she married Robert Shillingford, a pilot she had met while touring an RAF base with Churchill. She adopted his surname and moved to Wells, but continued to run Churchill’s constituency work.