CHURCHILL'S COPY: "TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WINSTON CHURCHILL WHOSE INSPIRING LEADERSHIP PREVENTED HITLER FROM CONQUERING THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND THE UNITED STATES": FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY, OF HOW TO STOP WORRYING AND START LIVING, 1948, MOVINGLY INSCRIBED BY DALE CARNEGIE TO WINSTON CHURCHILL, ADDITIONALLY SIGNED BY CARNEGIE, AND WITH THE BOOKPLATE OF RANDOLPH CHURCHILL, WINSTON CHURCHILL'S ONLY SON

CARNEGIE, Dale. How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1948. Octavo, original red paper boards, printed front free endpaper, original dust jacket.

First edition, first printing, presentation copy, of the self-help and business guru's final book, wonderfully inscribed: "This book is inscribed to the Right Honourable Winston Churchill whose inspiring leadership prevented Hitler from conquering the British Empire and the United States. Dale Carnegie. Forest Hills, Long Island," additionally signed by Carnegie, and bearing the bookplate of Churchill's only son, journalist, writer, and Tory MP Randolph Churchill.

How to Stop Worrying and Start Living was the follow-up to Carnegie's wildly successful 1936 bestseller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. "The author noted that he had decided to write this volume when, after listening to thousands of students in his public-speaking classes, 'I realized that one of the biggest problems of these adults was worry.' It was vintage Carnegie. Filled with snappy prose and abundant anecdotes, it drew lessons from real individuals who had succeeded at overcoming stressful problems that threatened their lives. Above all, it was down-to-earth and useful. What was Carnegie's remedy for curing the debilitating emotional anxiety and worry sweeping through modern America? Boldly, once again, he proposed a new cultural ethic: live for today and seek emotional self-fulfillment" (Watts, Self-Help Messiah, 438, 442). "First printing" stated on copyright page. This copy is inscribed by Dale Carnegie to Winston Churchill. Carnegie was an admirer of Churchill's and frequently used an anecdote about Churchill's public speaking to demonstrate the importance of delivering off-the-cuff speeches. Churchill, he states, "had to learn that lesson the hard way. As a young man, Churchill wrote out and memorized speeches. Then one day, while delivering a memorized talk before the British Parliament, he stopped dead in his mental tracks. His mind went blank. He was embarrassed, humiliated!… From that day on, Winston Churchill never attempted to deliver a memorized talk" (The Essential Dale Carnegie). This also copy bears the bookplate of Randolph Churchill, Winston Churchill's son. Churchill was a talented writer and journalist, even dropping out of Oxford to pursue his career. His greatest literary achievements were in biography. While Winston Churchill often disapproved of his son's choices, he was overall a doting father known for spoiling his son. Randolph Churchill followed in his father's footsteps politically, serving as a Tory MP during World War II. Churchill ultimately lost his seat in 1945 but was still in and out of government in positions such as parliamentary private secretary and front-bench spokesman—often espousing positions far more conservative than those of his father.

Book very nearly fine, bright dust jacket with only light rubbing to extremities, faint dampstain at base of spine, and single tape repair to verso. A handsome inscribed and twice signed presentation copy with outstanding provenance.