Search Results: Authors starting with B from Churchill Book Collector

Glasgow: The Grand Colosseum Warehouse Co., undated. Hardcover. Heinrich Barth (1821-1865) was a German scholar born in Hamburg. He achieved fame as an African explorer. His scholarly gifts helped him to learn many African languages and produce very careful documentation of the places and peoples he visited. There were multiple "cheap" one volume editions of this title issued by various British and U.S. publishers in the late 1850s. This seems to be one, though it is undated. This is an extremely dense book, 548 pages in small type with small page margins. Condition is only good. Though the spotting of the contents is limited to the ffep, there are two gutter breaks at pages 144 and 448 where just the binding cords are holding the text block together. The plain original red cloth binding is a bit worn and faded with fraying at spine ends and a .75 inch closed tear at the head of the spine.

Tunisia: British Eighth Army, 28 April 1943. Leaflet. This compelling Second World War artifact is an original message from General Bernard Law Montgomery to his Eighth Army troops on 28 April 1943 during the final Allied effort to expel Axis forces from North Africa. This printed message is not only a remarkable survivor, but is signed by Montgomery “B. L. Montgomery” just below his printed name. While the signature is undated, it seems almost certainly to have been signed in situ; Montgomery was created Viscount Montgomery of Alamein in January 1946 and thereafter routinely signed “Montgomery of Alamein”. The leaflet measures 8 x 10 inches (20.3 x 25.4 cm) printed in black on a single side of thin, acidic stock. Condition shows wear expected for an original piece of North African theatre ephemera. A single vertical crease and two horizontal creases testify that the leaflet was folded, notionally to fit in a soldier’s pocket. The folds and edges show wear and fractional chipping, there is… Read More

Austin, Texas: W. Thomas Taylor, 1985. Limited, finely bound edition. Quarter leather. This one of ten specially bound, signed, and numbered copies of the limited edition is accompanied by the original publishers promotional leaflet and housed in the original Solander case. The colophon states that of an edition limited to one thousand copies THIS IS NUMBER X OF TEN SPECIALLY BOUND COPIES. The limitation number X is hand-inked and the limitation line partially overwritten by the signature of Joseph Blumenthal the typographer. Below his signature Blumenthal wrote the date October / 85. The vast majority of the edition - 99 percent of the copies - were issued clothbound and slipcased. The ten specially bound copies, of which this is the last, were bound in quarter cedar-hued goatskin over blue-gray cloth boards, with the hand-numbered and signed colophon, and housed in an oatmeal cloth Solander case, felt-lined with leather spine label. The contents, printed on Mohawk Superfine paper and printed from… Read More

New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1950. First edition. Hardcover. This inscribed and jacketed first edition of Bradbury’s first major work and enduring classic, The Martian Chronicles, is inked in blue in four lines on the title page: "BILL! | BEST FROM | RAY BRADBURY | OCT. 1966". First edition is so stated on the copyright page. Condition is good plus in a good plus dust jacket. The first edition’s pale green cloth binding proved notoriously prone to toning and discoloration. This copy is square and tight with sharp corners and only trivial wrinkling to spine ends, but nonetheless modestly toned to the spine and also showing some mild staining to the boards, primarily at the midpoint of the spine and the rear cover. The contents are clean with no previous ownership marks apart from the author’s signature. Trivial spotting appears confined to a few spots on the fore and bottom edges and at the lower rear endpaper verso and pastedown. The dust jacket is complete, with no appreciable loss… Read More

London: Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1939. First edition, first printing. Hardcover. This is an inscribed author’s presentation copy of General Spears’s memoir of his role as liaison officer in 1917 during the First World War’s failed Franco-British Nivelle Offensive. The book was a successor to Spears’s Liaison, 1914 (1930). Of note, the author’s inscription is dated exactly two months after Britain and France declared war on Germany, beginning the Second World War. As prominently noted in red print on the dust jacket spine and front face, Winston Churchill contributed an introduction (pages 11-13). This first edition, first printing was inscribed to Maurice Hankey. Within months of this book’s publication and inscription, both men were playing important wartime roles under Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill. The inscription, inked in five lines on the front free endpaper recto, reads “To | Maurice Hankey | from | Louis Spears | Nov. 3rd. 1939”. Condition approaches near fine in a good plus dust… Read More

London: Sidgwick & Jackson Limited, 1915. First edition. Hardcover. This is a handsome, contemporary association copy of the first edition, first printing of Rupert Brooke’s (1887-1915) 1914 and Other Poems. The front free endpaper contains the ownership signature: “A. T. Bartholomew | Cambridge, | 18 June 1915.” Augustus Theodore “Theo” Bartholomew (1882-1933) was a Librarian at Cambridge University and a bibliographer. Bartholomew was closely associated with Brooke and his fellow Georgian poets, even overseeing the private printing of 200 copies of Siegfried Sassoon’s book Picture Show. According to his own dating, Bartholomew acquired this copy of 1914 and Other Poems just two days after publication and less than two months after Rupert Brooke’s death. Bartholomew wrote in his diary that the loss of Brooke was “a loss to English poetry and still more in my opinion to English [literary] criticism”. Bartholomew’s point, although intended as mere elegy and figuration, was actually… Read More

London: John Murray, 1850. Full leather. This is a handsome, finely bound, school prize presentation copy of publisher John Murray’s 1850 edition of the Poetical Works of Byron. The binding, excellent edition, and contemporary school prize provenance render this a compelling example of poetical works of perhaps the best known Romantic poet persona of western literature. The full red leather binding features raised spine bands with gilt decoration, gilt-bordered compartments, elaborate gilt design on the blind rule-bordered covers, gilt-decorated edges, and endpapers framed by gilt dentelle turn-ins. The contents are bound with all edges gilt and silk head and tail bands. Condition is good plus, sound and fully intact, albeit with expected wear to the venerable binding. The binding shows some spine darkening and overall scuffing, most prominent to the spine and hinges. The upper hinges show very short splits that do not affect binding integrity. The contents remain quite clean overall, with no… Read More