Author(s): Winston S. Churchill

World War II | Secondhand

Secondhand. First abridged edition of Churchill's vast memoir of the Second World War, with an Epilogue on the Years 1945 to 1957. Fifth impression.

The Second World War ranks as one of the supreme historical achievements of the 20th century, and is commonly cited as a major factor in Churchill being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953. As Max Beloff observed, there was no other statesman of the century "whose retrospective accounts of the great events in which he has taken part have so dominated subsequent historical thinking". Churchill contributed a new epilogue of around 10,000 words for this edition, detailing the aftermath of the war up till 1957, for which he was paid the extraordinary sum of £20,000. His close friend Emery Reves estimated it was the highest sum ever paid per word by a publisher (cited in Langworth, p. 267). The epilogue constituted Churchill's final original writing for book publication, an appropriate ending for his six-decade literary career; it was also serialized in the Daily Telegraph in 1958 prior to its appearance here. "The epilogue considers in retrospect Churchill's Fulton speech, the Berlin blockade, the Marshall Plan and NATO, his attempts for a 'summit' with the Russians, the Suez debacle, his hopes for peace in the same first-person narrative as the original six volumes. With so much original material it is highly collectible and belongs in every serious Churchill library".

"Here is one of the lasting works of English literature, one of the enduring memorials of our time, one of the noblest tributes to the endurance and resourcefulness of the British people. The master-work of a master mind" -- Sir Linton Andreas.

VG. Inscriptions on the front endpaper.