CHURCHILL'S BRILLIANT HISTORY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR, SIGNED BY HIM IN VOLUME VI

CHURCHILL, Winston. The Second World War: The Gathering Storm; Their Finest Hour; The Grand Alliance; The Hinge of Fate; Closing the Ring; Triumph and Tragedy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948-1953. Six volumes. Octavo, original red cloth, dust jackets supplied from another set of the Book of the Month Club edition. Housed in six custom half morocco clamshell boxes. $7500.

Book-of-the-Month Club editions of Churchill's WWII masterpiece, part history and part memoir, written after he lost reelection as Prime Minister, signed by him on the title page of Volume VI.

The six volumes of Churchill's masterpiece were published separately between 1948 and 1953, each preceding the British first editions by some months. "The Second World War is a great work of literature, combining narrative, historical imagination and moral precept in a form that bears comparison with that of the original master chronicler, Thucydides. It was wholly appropriate that in 1953 Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature" (Keegan, 175). With the Second World War, Churchill "pulled himself back from humiliating defeat in 1945, using all his skills as a writer and politician to make his fortune, secure his reputation, and win a second term in Downing Street" (Reynolds, xxiii)."Winston himself affirmed that 'this is not history: this is my case" (Holmes, 285). Churchill was re-elected to the post of Prime Minister in 1951. The American editions precede the English editions by about three months; these Book-of-the-Month Club editions were issued virtually simultaneously with the first editions, distinguished by tiny circular slug (or dot) in lower right corner of the rear board. Cohen A240.3. Woods A123a. Langworth, 258-61.

Books near-fine to fine, dust jackets with mild rubbing, light edge-wear, very good.