Books

London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 1944. 1944. Hardcover. This noteworthy association copy of Churchill’s autobiography of his early life was inscribed by Churchill and presented on the final day of his wartime premiership to the man who helped create and served as custodian of the Cabinet War Rooms. Five lines inked in black on the front free endpaper read: “To | G. Rance | from | Winston S. Churchill | 1945”. Affixed to the recto of the succeeding blank is a typed presentation message on “10 Downing Street, Whitehall” stationery. Four typed lines read: “With Mr. Churchill’s Compliments. | A Souvenir of 10, Downing Street | 1940-1945 | 26th July, 1945”. Below the date, “Mr. Rance” is inked in black. To create a secret location safe from air raids, a sprawling maze of subterranean offices below Whitehall was transformed into the Cabinet War Rooms and became the center of Britain’s war effort. Churchill’s War Cabinet met here 115 times. Churchill delivered four wartime…

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