Estimate: | £1,500 - £2,500 |
Hammer price: | £2,600 |
CHURCHILL, Winston Spencer (1874-1965). The Collected Works [and] The Collected Essays, edited by Frederick Woods, Tom Hartman and Herbert Rees. London: Library of Imperial History in Association with Charles Scribner's Sons and the Hamlyn Publishing Group, 1973-76. 38 volumes, large 8vo (233 x 150mm). Plates and maps. Original publisher's full armorial vellum gilt, gilt edges, marbled endpapers, green silk markers (without the slipcases, [?]as here issued). A COMPLETE SET OF "THE CENTENARY EDITION", including the four volumes of The Collected Essays which are sometimes lacking. Limited edition, but issued without the numbered limitation bookplates. "The Collection is issued as a limited edition and contains all 50 of Churchill's published titled, arranged in 34 [sic] volumes. Only 2,000 sets have been authorised for the British Empire and Commonwealth, excluding Canada, and a further 1,000 sets for the United States of America and Canada. The registered number of the set to which this volume belongs will be found on the inside front cover [not present in this set; see note above]. No volume of the complete edition has been sold other than as part of the whole, and in no circumstances can the total number of sets available anywhere in the world exceed the number 3,000" (from the preface to each vol.). Cohen A286: "... the print run never exceeded 2000 copies, and only 1750 sets were ever published"; Woods A146. (38)