Lot 153
Churchill, Sir Winston
Auction: 10 June 2009 at 12:00 BST
Description
London to Ladysmith via Pretoria. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1900. First edition, presentation copy, inscribed on half-title "To John Black Atkins Esq., from Winston S. Churchill. South Africa, July 1900", and inscribed "J.B. Atkins" in pencil on front endpaper, 8vo, 4 maps [3 folding], 2 + 32pp. advertisements at end, original buff pictorial cloth lettered on upper cover in red and black and on spine in gilt, joints and corners slightly frayed, slightly soiled, spine slightly darkened
Footnote
Note: A fine early association copy. Churchill had left for South Africa as the correspondent of the Morning Post while John Black Atkins was there as the correspondent of the Manchester Guardian. Atkins had travelled out to S. Africa with the twenty-four year old Churchill by steamer and the two went together to Durban, sharing a tent at Estcourt, but Atkins declined Churchill's offer to accompany him on the armoured train from Estcourt to Colenso. It was the attack by the Boers on the armoured train, Churchill's role in freeing the locomotive from the wreckage and his subsequent capture, which gave him the dramatic story he needed to further advance his political career. For J.B. Atkins' account of the Boer war, The relief of Ladysmith and his autobiography, Incidents and Reflections see lot 129.