Wartime “Cheap” Edition in Variant Yellow Dust Jacket

First English Edition. 1940 1938?
By: Winston S. Churchill
George G. Harrap & Co. [London]
8vo (466 pages)

Book Condition: is Very Good. Dust Jacket has a couple of chips other wise V.g.   1st Edition.  The book contains speeches from 1928 to 1938.

The world remembers the resolute war leader to whom the British turned, but it is easy to forget the years leading up to the war which Churchill spent persistent, eloquent, and largely unheeded. Churchill bibliographer Frederick Woods called this edition “probably the most crucial volume of speeches that he ever published”. It is said that a copy of the U.S. edition lay on “President Roosevelt’s bedside table, with key passages, including an analysis of the president’s peace initiative, underscored.” (William Manchester’s The Last Lion, Volume II, p.305).

Only 5,000 copies of this first and only British impression were printed, of which at least 3,381 and perhaps more than 4,000 were sold with the pale blue, first state dust jacket. The balance – no more than 1,619 copies and quite likely fewer – were offered at a lower price in June 1940 bearing a striking yellow dust jacket. Because the price was reduced with the yellow dust jacket, this has often been called by bibliographers the “Cheap” issue.

The yellow dust jackets were issued on laid paper printed red on the front face and spine with a blank rear face and rear flap. Given the yellow paper and red print, they obviously proved quite susceptible to soiling. Today the yellow dust jackets are considerably scarcer than their pale blue first issue counterparts.

This dust jacket retains bright spine lettering, with loss at the base of the spine. The front face remains bright and the front flap is neatly price-clipped.
The dust jacket is protected in a removable Bro Dart clear protective cover.

The contents are crisp and bright.

Woods A44a
Cohen A107.3

Item #356