Great Contemporaries. by CHURCHILL, Winston S - 1937

London: Thornton Butterworth Ltd,, 1937. First edition, first impression, a bibliographical enigma: Cohen's "second state", this being the only copy he ever identified, from his personal collection, with his pencilled ownership inscription on the front free endpaper. Cohen's entry in full reads: "I have examined a most unusual copy in which there is a second p. 57, which appears not to be a singleton, as one would expect in the circumstances, but rather the right-hand leaf of a conjugate pair of which the left-hand leaf, D3, has been cancelled and replaced by a leaf on which the text has been changed (with the result, of course, since the original has been removed, that there remains but a single extra leaf in this signature). On the cancellans, 53.16, reads ''The Funeral march of a fried eel.' His most serious work' rather than ''the burial march of a monkey' His most serious work' as in the first state. On the right hand-leaf, the note reads 'Written in 1925. Alas, we laughed too soon.' rather than 'Alas, we laughed too soon.' as in the first state. Although the change on p. 57 does not reappear in subsequent printings, that on p. 53 is the text of all printings from the third on. I consider that the later textual version of p. 53 points convincingly to the conclusion that such copies are second, rather than first states of the first printing; however, I have no explanation for the unique appearance of the text of p. 57 found here" (Cohen, vol. I, p. 471). Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine and front cover lettered in gilt, top edge blue. With 21 photographic plates. Front pastedown with bookplate of Claud Lambton (1888-1976), son of the 4th Earl of Durham, and bookseller's ticket of Henry Sotheran (who sold the book to Cohen). Spine a little sunned, a few spots to cloth and edges: a very good copy. Cohen A105.1.b. Richard Langworth, A Connoisseur's Guide to the Books of Sir Winston Churchill, 1998.