FIRST EDITION OF CHURCHILL’S IAN HAMILTON’S MARCH, 1900

CHURCHILL, Winston. Ian Hamilton's March. London: Longmans, Green, 1900. Octavo, modern full navy morocco, raised bands, spine decorated with gilt-stamped Churchill lion emblems, top edge gilt. $1800.

First edition of Churchill’s fifth book, a continuation of his coverage of the Boer War, handsomely bound.

Ian Hamilton's March, the sequel to Churchill's popular London to Ladysmith, "describes the fighting march of Ian Hamilton's mounted division from Bloemfontein to Johannesburg (Churchill rode a bicycle into 'Jo'burg' a day before the army arrived) and on to Pretoria, where the author was able to help liberate his former fellow prisoners" (Langworth, 58). Hamilton proposed Churchill for the Victoria Cross for some of his brave acts during the Boer War, but Churchill, having resigned his South African Light Horse commission in order to act as a journalist, was ineligible. The volume consists of 17 letters Churchill wrote as a Morning Post correspondent; "in contrast to London to Ladysmith, the texts of the originally published letters were more extensively revised and four letters were included which had never appeared in periodical form" (Cohen A8.1.a). With frontispiece portrait of Hamilton and ten maps (one folding and colored). Four pages of advertisements for other Churchill works, a 32-page publisher's catalogue dated "7/00" and the original red front cover cloth bound at rear. Cohen A8.1.a. Langworth, 59. Woods A5.

Scattered spots of light foxing; small stain to upper inner margin of frontispiece portrait, not touching image. A handsome copy.