The World Crisis, full set of six British first edition, first printings, in dust jackets by Winston S. Churchill - 1923

London: Thornton Butterworth Limited, 1923. First edition, first printing. Hardcover. This is a full, six-volume British first edition, first printing six-volume set in the rare first printing dust jackets, an elusive prize thus. When this set was originally published between 1923 and 1931, booksellers often discarded the dust jackets when offering the books for sale. Even those which were not discarded often did not survive; the jackets for the two 1916-1918 volumes and the Eastern Front volume proved notoriously brittle. The mere fact that this set is jacketed commands attention; several other considerations make it particularly noteworthy. The 1911-1914 dust jacket is the first issue, with a blank rear panel that does not advertise subsequent volumes in the series. Also noteworthy, the 1916-1918 jackets and the Eastern Front jacket are all in one piece, with no detached flaps or hinge breaks. We know of no other complete, first printing jacketed sets on the world market thus. Overall condition of this set is near fine in very good dust jackets. All six bindings are square, clean, and tight with bright spine gilt and only trivial blemishes. Spotting is modest for the edition, substantially confined to text block edges and prelims, with only occasional intrusions into blank inner margins. The sole previous ownership mark we find in the set is an inked name dated “May 1923” in Volume I. The contents of most of the volumes retain a crisp, unread feel. The dust jackets range from very good plus to very good minus. The exceptionally elusive Eastern Front dust jacket has spine head loss to a maximum depth of .75 inch, minor chipping to the top edges of the front and rear panels, and closed tears at the lower hinges. As is always the case, the pale green color is toned on the spine, though still visible on the panels and flaps. The Aftermath jacket suffers only fractional loss to the top edges. The 1916-1918 jackets are quite remarkable for the edition. The Part II jacket is nearly complete, with just fractional chipping to the spine head and corners and mild spine toning. The Part I jacket shows fractional chipping to the upper edges and corners with spine head loss that is one inch wide and a maximum of just over half an inch deep and some barely discernible moisture staining to the upper front panel adjacent to the spine. The 1915 jacket shows only fractional chipping to corners and hinge extremities, light overall soiling, and modest spine toning. The 1911-1914 jacket shows small losses at the spine head and corners, overall soiling, and spine toning, with a price reduction penciled faintly above the original price on the lower spine. The World Crisis is Winston Churchill's epic history of the First World War, in which he played such a critical, controversial, and varied role. The First World War saw Churchill serve both in the Cabinet and on the Front, nearly losing both his political and corporeal life in the process. Churchill served as First Lord of the Admiralty from 1911 until 1915, but after the failure in the Dardanelles, he was scapegoated and forced to resign. He spent his political exile as a lieutenant colonel leading a battalion in the trenches. Before the war's end, Churchill was exonerated and rejoined the Government, foreshadowing the political isolation and restoration he would experience nearly two decades later leading up to the Second World War. Despite Churchill's political recovery, the stigma of the Dardanelles would linger. Churchill may have meant for his history of the First World War to clear his name, but his six-volume masterwork far exceeds this purpose. Many consider the British edition aesthetically superior to the U.S., with its larger volumes and shoulder notes summarizing the subject of each page. This is as early as a collector can plausibly go for jacketed first edition works by Churchill. Bibliographic reference: Cohen A69.2(I).b, A69.2(II).a, A96.2(III-1&2).a, A69.2(IV).b, A69.2(V).a; Woods/ICS A31(ab), Langworth p.105