Took Mom to a local estate sale today for her birthday coming up, bought her a nice little jewelry cabinet to replace the plainer one she has been using for decades now, oh and also, y'know...
:D :D :D A NEAR-FIRST EDITION COLLECTION OF CHURCHILL'S 6-VOLUME COMMENTARY ON WORLD WAR TWO :D :D :D
...among some other things.
Among those other things are a first (or near first) edition of Guadalcanal Diary, from a printing back while WW2 was still going on (the back dust-jacket encourages readers to load up on war bonds and maybe donate the book to someone in the service).
Also, a 1909 print edition of Churchill's The Crisis (so also first or near-first edition), which is a series of essays or ruminations on how the United States got into our Civil War. (Some of this material no doubt made it into his History of the English Speaking People, which he wrote going into the early WW2 years as part of his political outreach program, so to speak, to explain the importance of why the United States should care about joining in on England's side. I found a set of those last years which had been bequested with a lot of other nifty historical things to my Mom from a cousin of hers, sitting up in our business' attic for 40 years.)
Also! -- ...don't recall the exact name of it, but at first I thought it was a published Masters' thesis or something comparing and contrasting German and Japanese occupation and reconciliation after WW2, written a decade or two later.
Nope! -- it's a position paper, published for circulation among Allied State Departments in 1944 (definitely a first edition), detailing general principles and plans for the occupation and reconciliation of Germany and Japan.
Hm, what else... Albert Speer's memoirs (unsure of the print edition yet) about the rise and fall of the Third Reich.
Captain Butcher's published diary (unsure of edition yet) of his time serving as the United States Navy representative to Eisenhower from 1942 - 45 (during the period of the "Crusade in Europe" -- I've got a first or close-to-first edition of that, too, from about 15 years ago, long since read of course.)
Annnnd a researcher's report on Hitler's plot(s) to assassinate the Big Three.
I nabbed a few more things, too, including another Churchill book dating from around the time of the history-of-WW2 volumes, called Blood and Sweat which serves as a thematic epilogue to the main series, with a wider scope on the history of democracy and the efforts required to foster and protect it which will be required of the West going forward (i.e. against Soviet plans for world domination).
Oh! -- yes, and also Story of a Secret State, the autobiography of a Polish Lieutenant who was tasked with acting as the liaison between the Polish government in exile (in London), and the democratic Polish government still operating secretly under Nazi occupation and governance! I didn't even know that was going on! -- good for them!
Strictly speaking, I got those for my birthday coming up later; Mom bought those, I bought the jewelry table. (I paid about twice as much, btw. ;) )
The guy running up the tally on the books looked kind of awed after he was done, and murmured, "You came out really well on that..."
Very nice! I'm Jealous. The book by Jan Karski ("The Story of a Secret State") is a good one. Mr. Karski was an interesting guy, getting himself smuggled into the death camp system to report on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Karski. See also https://www.yadvashem.org/righteous/stories/karski.html
I served in the USN with an officer who knew Mr. Karski when he was a student at Georgetown. This officer had only glowing things to say about him.
Keegan gives a touching appreciation of the Poles in Six Armies in Normandy.
Damn. That's an amazing haul, Jason! The owner of that estate must have been quite the collector. 8)
It makes me wonder what was on the shelves back on day one...
NO! -- that way lies madness. :hide:
Outstanding! I have and have read Churchill's 6-vol history of WWII, 4-vol hist of The English Speaking People and his Early Life, all at least two times, some more than that. I also have his two vol history of WWI but I have not read them. Churchill is a fantastic writer. No one makes history FUN to read like he does. It's like reading an adventure. You made out like a bandit.
Awesome grab. I have a copy of Speer's Rise and Fall that used to be my grandmother's. Inherited my love of books from her.
Practically all of these are available on Kindle now of course. I should probably just rebuy there so as not to risk damaging the books...
(Correction: I should definitely buy the First World War commentary series in five volumes, or 3 volumes plus an epilogue plus the eastern front rather, and read those before going into his Second World War commentary. >:D )
Meh, for books like these I would prefer the printed version.
What an amazing score, JP! Good for you! :clap: