Books

Presentation copy from Churchill, inscribed by him on the front free endpaper to the wife of Frederick Raven, who served as his butler and valet for nine months: "To Mrs Raven from Winston S. Churchill, 1949". My Early Life, Churchill's "witty and elegiac account of his youth" (ODNB), was first published in 1930. In 1946 the copyright in all of his pre-1940 books was sold by Churchill to Odhams for £25,000. The Odhams edition was first published in 1947; this is the second impression of 1948, which was split into the present "deluxe" binding issue with a leather label and red edges, and a standard binding issue with the label painted on and the edges uncoloured. Octavo. Original reddish orange cloth, black leather label to spine, red edges. Housed in a custom red quarter morocco solander box. Frontispiece and 8 plates; maps, plans and illustrations to the text including 1 double-page and 6 full-page. Cloth a little sunned, contents a little spotted: a very good copy. Cohen A91.9.c; Woods A37(a) for the first edition.

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