LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

New edition. Signed by the author. Inscribed presentation copy. Also with a typed letter signed by Winston Churchill presenting the volume. Publisher's original red cloth, ruled and with titles in gilt to the spine, in dustwrapper. Frontispiece portrait photograph and eight pages of illustrations throughout the text. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm with just a little bumping to the corners, the cloth and gilt, bright and fresh. The contents are clean throughout. Complete with the good, rubbed, nicked and creased dustwrapper that has several short closed tears, and is chipped with some loss to the spine tips.

Inscribed by the author as British Prime Minister in blue ink on the front endpaper "To / R.M.B. Mackenna / from / Winston S. Churchill / 1. 1. 1955". Loosely laid in is a typed letter on 10 Downing Street letterhead dated January 1, 1955, it reads "Dear Dr. Mackenna, / I understand you have not got a copy of / this book, and it gives me great pleasure to send / it to you to commemorate the New Year. / Yours sincerely / Winston S. Churchill". The letter is folded into four and housed in the original envelope. 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. A stellar signed presentation copy of Winston Churchill's biography of his father, Lord Randolph. The British first edition was published in two volumes in 1906. This 1952 single-volume edition contains the full text of the first edition and adds some previously unpublished correspondence and new preface by the author. (Cohen A17.5; Woods A8c).