Beschreibung:

Churchill, Sir Winston. MARLBOROUGH. HIS LIFE AND TIMES. GEORGE G HARRAP & CO. LTD, 1933-38 8vo, first editions, limited issue, no. 3 of 155 copies signed by the author and specially bound, all four volumes inscribed by churchill to his friend the duke of windsor, frontispieces, plates, facsimiles, and folding maps, errata slips in volumes 1-3, original full dark reddish orange Niger by Leighton-Straker, spines with raised bands, fore- and bottom edges untrimmed, top edges gilt, upper covers with the Marlborough arms in gilt, marbled endpapers, minor wear to edges of binding, very small and neat repairs to covers of volume 1 "...I...offer...my heartfelt wishes that...in the long swing of events Your Majesty's name will shine in history as the bravest and best beloved of all the sovereigns who have worn the island Crown..." (Churchill, letter to the King, 2 February 1936) a spectacular presentation set of the deluxe edition of churchill's life of his ancestor the first duke of marlborough: all four volumes inscribed by him to his friend edward viii (later the duke of windsor), the first three volumes in month of publication, with volume three inscribed "to the king". The full inscriptions are as follows: [volume 1:] "To | The Prince of Wales | from | Winston S. Churchill | Oct. 19. 1933" [volume 2:] "To | His Royal Highness | The Prince of Wales | from | Winston S. Churchill | Oct 21. 1934" [volume 3: ] "To | The King | from | Winston S. Churchill | October 30. 1936" [volume 4:] "For | The Duke of Windsor | from | Winston S. Churchill | Nov. 1954" The inscription in volume 3 is triply significant, for aside from being to the reigning monarch and only a week after publication it comes three days after Edward VIII's future wife Wallis Simpson was granted her decree nisi in Ipswich: this freed her and Edward to marry, but also of course precipitated the grave abdication crisis which consumed Britain and much of the rest of the world in the autumn of 1936. Edward celebrated the event by immediately proposing marriage to Wallis and sealing his promises with a nineteen carat emerald engagement ring from Cartier, with the inscription "We are ours now 27 X 36" on the shank (sold at Sotheby's Geneva, 2-3 April 1987, lot 81). Given the history of friendship between the two men -- Churchill had been a frequent guest at the then Prince of Wales's supper and dancing parties in earlier years, and had always responded to his boyish charm -- it was natural that, at the height of the crisis (and with the permission of the Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin) it was to Churchill, "as an old friend with whom he could talk freely", that the King turned for advice. On 4 December, the day after the British Press broke its self-imposed silence on the crisis, they met at Fort Belvedere (a house on the edge of Windsor Great Park), where Churchill was struck by the great strain under which the King was operating. There is no doubt that Churchill, despite originally having been strongly opposed to the Simpson divorce, subsequently very much took the King's side in the crisis (to a point which could have led to dangerous constitutional consequences, according to some historians), arguing that the King should be allowed a period of several months before making a decision. The Prime Minister (and the vast majority of the House of Commons) was very much of the opposing view, and Churchill was given one of the strongest rebuffs in parliamentary history when he tried to argue his case on 7 December, to the extent that he wondered if his political career was finished (see Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill. Volume V 1922--1939, p.825). On 10 December the Abdication Bill was debated in the House and the King signed the Instrument of Abdication in Fort Belvedere's Octagonal Drawing Room. The next day Edward's brother, the new King George VI, bestowed upon him the title of His Royal Highness The Duke of Windsor, and the former King had another lunch with Churchill, w