Books

London: Thornton Butterworth Ltd., 1940. First edition, sixth and final printing. Hardcover. This is the first edition, sixth and final printing, of Churchill's extremely popular autobiography in the quite scarce dust jacket unique to this wartime printing. The front face of this jacket features a striking, red-hued photo of Churchill. The rear face advertises Churchill's Thornton Butterworth works of the 1920s and 1930s, including The World Crisis, India, Great Contemporaries, and Step By Step. This final printing of the first edition is also notable for being the very last book published by Churchill's longtime publisher, Thornton Butterworth, which went under in 1940; this printing was published in December 1940 during the first year of Churchill's wartime premiership, three months after Thornton's voluntary liquidation but just before final arrangements regarding reversion of copyrights. This is an impressive example of a notoriously fragile edition, very good plus in a very good…

My Early Life is an autobiographical work by Winston Churchill. It covers his birth in 1874 to his first few years in Parliament.

First editions can be identified by the publisher's name Butterworth on the bottom of the spine and title page, as later editions were published by other publishers.