Thoughts and Adventures

London: Thornton Butterworth Limited, 1932. First edition, first printing. Hardcover. This is an extraordinary jacketed copy of the first edition, first printing – the finest we have encountered, housed in a full tan Morocco goatskin Solander.

Thoughts and Adventures is Churchill's collection of 23 engaging essays on an incredibly wide variety of subjects. It has been called "The broadest range of Churchill's thought between two hard covers" and reflects the two qualities that so characterize Churchill's life - a remarkable breadth of both mind and life experience.

The khaki cloth unique to the first printing of this edition is notoriously prone to scuffing, wear, and soiling, the contents proved highly susceptible to spotting, and the first printing dust jacket has become quite scarce in anything approaching collector-worthy condition. This copy is truly fine in a near fine dust jacket.

The dust jacket is unique to the first printing, with distinctive differences to later printings (and even some later first printings). This dust jacket is entirely complete and strikingly clean. We note only fractional wear to extremities – mostly just a tiny bit of wrinkling at the spine head - and a few tiny blemishes. Spine presentation is impressive, with no appreciable toning and only incidental soiling, mostly confined to the lower front joint. The jacket is protected within a clear, removable, archival cover.

The book beneath is magnificently clean and bright as only the best jacketed copies can be. The khaki cloth binding is exceptional – square, immaculately clean, and vividly bright with sharp corners and only the most trivial hints of shelf wear, entirely confined to the edges. The contents are crisp and bright. The book feels unread. We find no previous ownership marks. Most impressive, we find no spotting. Even the fore and bottom edges are immaculate, the top edge showing just a little shelf dust.

The book is housed in a tan Morocco goatskin Solander with rounded spine, raised spine bands, twin black spine labels, and tan, suede-lined interior. Condition of the Solander is as new.

An original blurb for Thoughts and Adventures encapsulates – as far as is possible – the wide range of the chapters within: “These true stories concern such things as the tides that make a politician change his mind; the domination of chance in human lives; the cartoonists who mocked Churchill; the chances and events that occurred while he was in the trenches; phases of the war seen from intimate participation with the high commands; flying experiences in 1912; the Irish; the future; and contemporary change." In a 31 May 1932 letter to his publisher about the book, Churchill characterized it thus: "...although there is no one single theme, it has some of the best things in it I have ever written."

Reference: Cohen A95.1.b, Woods/ICS A39(aa.1), Langworth p.156.