Great Contemporaries, magnificently bound in full Morocco and slipcased

London: Thornton Butterworth Limited, 1937. First edition, first printing. Full leather. This is an exquisitely finely bound copy of the 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.

The elegant, dark green, full Morocco goatskin binding features a hubbed spine with gilt-rule framed and decorated bands, gilt rules at the spine head and tail, Churchill’s ancestral Marlborough arms in gilt on the front cover, and a red calf spine label. The contents are bound with all edges gilt, a green silk ribbon marker, gold and green silk head and tail bands, and elaborately gilt-tooled turn-ins framing sumptuous marbled endpapers. This compellingly handsome example of the fine binder’s craft is a reminder to collectors that not all fine bindings are created equal. The volume is housed in a stout, green buckram slipcase with Churchill’s ancestral Marlborough arms in gilt on the right side.

Condition is magnificently fine. The exceptional binding shows no wear or blemishes. The first edition contents are well suited to the binding, immaculately crisp and clean with no spotting or previous ownership marks. The gilt page edges are likewise pristine. The slipcase is in fine condition, with no wear or blemishes

Neville Chamberlain, perhaps Churchill’s most vexing political opponent at the time Great Contemporaries was published, wrote to Churchill on 4 October 1937: “How you can go on throwing off these sparkling sketches with such apparent ease & such sustained brilliance… is a constant source of wonder to me.” Naturally, in the course of sketching the character of his contemporaries Churchill necessarily reveals some of his own character and perspective.

Churchill's portrait of T.E. Lawrence, published here just a few years before the Second World War, might well have been written about the author rather than by him: "The impression of the personality of Lawrence remains living and vivid upon the minds of his friends, and the sense of his loss is in no way dimmed among his countrymen. All feel the poorer that he has gone from us. In these days dangers and difficulties gather upon Britain and her Empire, and we are also conscious of a lack of outstanding figures with which to overcome them. Here was a man in whom there existed not only an immense capacity for service, but that touch of genius which everyone recognizes and no one can define." (Great Contemporaries, p.164)

Churchill's piece about Hitler can be a shock to the modern ear, as it underscores his ability to write a balanced appraisal of his subject while expressing his earnest desire to avoid the war that he would fight with such ferocious resolve only a few years later. There is a reason this book has seen many subsequent editions in the intervening years. It was written with what has been called "penetrating evaluation, humor, and understanding."

While some of the subjects of Churchill's sketches have receded into history, many remain well-known and all remain compellingly drawn. This is as engaging a read today as it was in 1937.

Reference: Cohen A105.1.a, Woods/ICS A43(a.1), Langworth p.178.