Books

London: Thornton Butterworth Limited, 1937. First edition, first printing. Hardcover. This is an unusually clean and bright jacketed copy of the British first edition, first printing. Great Contemporaries is Churchill's much-praised collection of insightful essays about 21 leading personalities of the day - including the likes of Lawrence, Shaw, and, most famously, Hitler. This copy is fine in a very good dust jacket. The blue cloth binding is superlative – immaculately clean, square, and tight, with deep, unfaded blue hue, and sharp corners. We note only a touch of wrinkling at the spine ends and perhaps the slightest hint of shelf wear to the edges. The contents are likewise immaculate – improbably bright and crisp with no spotting and no previous ownership marks. The blue top stain remains evenly dark. Differential toning to the dust endpapers corresponding to the dust jacket flaps confirms what the magnificent binding already testifies – that this copy has spent life…