The World Crisis: 1916-1918, Part I

London: Thornton Butterworth Limited, 1927. First edition, third printing. Hardcover. This is the British first edition, third printing, of the third volume of Winston Churchill's monumental history of The First World War, elusive thus in the original dust jacket. A quarter of a century before the Second World War endowed him with lasting fame, Winston Churchill played a uniquely critical, controversial, and varied role in the “War to end all wars”. Then, being Churchill, he wrote about it. The World Crisis was originally published in six volumes between 1923 and 1931, with the first four volumes spanning the war years 1911-1918 and the final two volumes covering the postwar years 1918-1928 (The Aftermath) and the Eastern theatre (The Eastern Front).

The events of the 1916-1918 volumes, of which this is the first, include Churchill's time at the Front, his return to the Cabinet, and Armistice Day, marking the formal end of hostilities. This third printing was issued March 1927, the same month as the first and second printings. The dust jacket is nearly identical to that of the first printing, differing only in replacement of the six-line blurb at the center of each front face with five lines of review quotes from Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph. The volume is bound in navy cloth identical to that of the first printing, though the volumes use thinner sheets than the first printing, making the volume narrower. Content is virtually identical, differing from the first printing only in removal of the erratum slip, correction of a footnote, and notation of the second and third printings on the copyright page.

Condition of this copy is very good plus in a very good dust jacket. The blue cloth binding is beautifully square, clean, bright and tight with sharp corners, vivid spine gilt, and no appreciable wear. The contents remain crisp and feel unread. Differential toning to the endpapers corresponds to the dust jacket flaps, confirming that this copy has spent life jacketed. Only spotting – heavy to the page edges and within primarily confined to the first and final leaves with occasional intrusions into the blank inner margins – prevents our grading this copy as “fine”. The sole previous ownership mark is the tiny sticker of a Lewes bookseller affixed to the lower front pastedown. This third printing dust jacket is quite clean, with only light soiling and spine toning. A strip loss at the spine head to a maximum depth of .6 inch (1.5 cm) is the only appreciable loss, with only fractional chipping at the spine heel and corners. The dust jacket is protected beneath a clear, removable, archival cover.

In October 1911, aged 36, Winston Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. He entered the post with the brief to change war strategy and ensure the readiness of the world’s most powerful navy. He did both. Nonetheless, when Churchill advocated successfully for a naval campaign in the Dardanelles that ultimately proved disastrous, a convergence of factors sealed his political fate. Churchill was scapegoated and forced to resign, leaving the Admiralty in May 1915. Years later, Churchill’s wife, Clementine, recalled to Churchill’s official biographer “I thought he would never get over the Dardanelles; I thought he would die of grief.” (Gilbert, Vol. III, p.473)

By November, Churchill resigned even his nominal Cabinet posts to spend the rest of his political exile as a lieutenant colonel leading a battalion in the trenches at the Front. Before war's end, Churchill was exonerated by the Dardanelles Commission and rejoined the Government, foreshadowing the political isolation and restoration he would experience two decades later leading up to the Second World War. Despite Churchill's political recovery, the stigma of the Dardanelles lingered. Hence Churchill had more than just literary and financial compulsion to write his history.

References: Cohen A69.2(III-1).c, Woods/ICS A31(ab), Langworth p.105.