MY EARLY LIFE

New edition. Signed by the author. Publisher's original red cloth, with gilt facsimile of the author's signature to the upper board, gilt titles on black to the spine, in dustwrapper. With a portrait frontispiece and 20 further plates, maps and diagrams throughout. Top edge red. A near fine copy, the binding square and tight, with a bumping to the upper corner of the front board, the cloth and gilt, bright and fresh. The contents are clean throughout and without previous owners marks. Complete with the very good, bright, original dustwrapper, that has a chip to the edge of the spine and some rubbing and small nicks to the extremities.

Signed by Winston S. Churchill in blue ink on the half title. Loosely inserted is a typed letter from Churchill's private secretary Catherine Snelling, on 28, Hyde Park Gate, London notepaper. Dated 19 January 1960, the letter reads "Dear Mr. Mackenna, / Sir Winston has asked me to / send you, with his very best wishes, / this copy of his book, MY EARLY LIFE, / which he hopes you will accept / as a small token of his appreciation. / yours sincerely / [signed] C. Snelling / Private Secretary". The recipient, Dr Robert Merttins Bird Mackenna (1903–1984), was appointed Adviser in Dermatology to the War Office in 1941 and subsequently became War Office Consultant in Dermatology, serving with the rank of Acting Colonel and Local Brigadier. He held this position until 1964. From the late 1940s through the 1960s, he also served as Winston Churchill's personal dermatologist. First published by Thornton Butterworth in 1930, 'My Early Life' is an entertaining volume of autobiography covering the years from Churchill's birth in 1872 to around 1902. The film rights were sold in October 1960 to Paramount, who commissioned C. S. Forester to write the script. Whilst the Forester script never made it to production, the book was later adapted by Carl Foreman for the 1972, Acadamy award nominated film 'Young Winston', directed by Richard Attenborough andv starring Simon Ward in the role of Churchill, Robert Shaw (as Lord Randolph Churchill), John Mills (as Lord Kitchener), Anthony Hopkins (as David Lloyd George) and Anne Bancroft as Churchill's mother Jennie. Other actors included Patrick Magee, Robert Hardy, Jane Seymour, Edward Woodward and Jack Hawkins. (Woods A37; Cohen A91.9).