ROWSE, A. L. (1903-97). The Later Churchills, London, 1958, large 8vo, original buckram. FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY, inscribed by the author to Clarissa and Anthony Eden. With 2 other books by the same author, both PRESENTATION COPIES. (3)

ROWSE, A. L. (1903-97).  The Later Churchills. London: Macmillan & Co Ltd., 1958. Large 8vo (218 x 150mm). Half title, half tone frontispiece and plates. Original red buckram, spine lettered and decorated in gilt (without the dust-jacket). Provenance: Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon (modern armorial bookplate loosely-inserted). FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY, the front free endpaper inscribed, "For Clarissa and Anthony Eden, this book that brings together their family history and in which they both come: their much indebted A. L. Rowse." The book can be fiercely anti-Chamberlain, even when quoting others ("Those men, his [i.e. Chamberlain's] immeasurable superiors, Lloyd George and Churchill, described him accurately enough: the one, 'a good Lord Mayor of Birmingham in a lean year'; the other, 'he viewed world affairs through the wrong end of the municipal drain-pipe'"). See pp.462-464 for an account of the lead-up to Munich, and Eden's resignation which "reduced Churchill to despair." With 2 other books by the same author, both FIRST EDITIONS, PRESENTATION COPIES to Anthony Eden, namely The England of Elizabeth. The Structure of Society (London, 1950, 8vo, cloth, inscribed, "This small tribute of admiration for the statesman and with the best wishes of the author, A. L. Rowse, Nov. 1950" and All Souls and Appeasement (London, 1961, 8vo, cloth, inscribed, "With kindest wishes from A. L. Rowse." (3)