Winston S. Churchill
CHURCHILL, Winston S. London to Ladysmith via Pretoria.
London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1900.
First edition, first impression of Churchill’s fourth published book and one of the great adventure narratives of his remarkable early life.
Sent to South Africa as war correspondent for the Morning Post, the twenty-five-year-old Churchill was travelling aboard an armoured train when it was ambushed by Boer forces in November 1899. Captured and imprisoned in Pretoria, he escaped less than a month later and made his way through enemy territory to Portuguese East Africa. The exploit transformed the young Churchill into a national celebrity and helped propel him towards his first parliamentary victory later that year.
The book gathers twenty-seven letters and telegrams written between October 1899 and March 1900, carrying the reader from Churchill’s voyage to South Africa through the armoured-train disaster, imprisonment, escape and his subsequent return to the fighting and Relief of Ladysmith.
Octavo. Original light brown pictorial cloth, the upper board dramatically decorated with the armoured train and Churchill’s facsimile signature, spine lettered and decorated in red and gilt; black endpapers. Illustrated with four maps, including the folding route map, together with four battle plans, and with the publisher’s catalogue at rear.
A well-preserved example of this famously vulnerable binding. The cloth shows minor spotting and an expert, discreet repair to the head of the spine. The gilt remains bright; internally clean and tight, with the folding maps crisp and without tears.
