India, Finely Bound In Three-Quarter Morocco Goatskin By Sangorski & Sutcliffe Winston S. Churchill Wsc Collectible & Fine Bindings,Wsc First Editions

This is a first edition, first printing finely bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe. India is a collection of ten Churchill speeches, part of his campaign against the India Bill over which he broke with his party’s leadership. Though his cause was lost, these speeches are considered to contain some of the finest examples of Churchill's rhetorical brilliance.The binding features three-quarter red Morocco goatskin over red cloth. The spine features raised and gilt-decorated spine bands bracketed by blind rules, gilt-ruled compartments, a swan design in the upper compartment, title in the second compartment, author in the third compartment, and publication date at the spine heel. All transitions are gilt-ruled. The contents are bound with gilt top edge, silk head and tail bands, and marbled endpapers. "BOUND BY SANGORSKI & SUTCLIFFE, LONDON. ENGLAND" is stamped on the upper left corner of the front free endpaper recto. We find no previous ownership marks. Condition is very good plus. The binding is square, tight, bright, and clean with trivial shelf scuffing substantially confined to the corners and the bottom edges of the cloth panels. The first printing contents are well-suited to the fine binding. We find no previous ownership marks. Spotting, endemic to the edition, is quite light, primarily confined to the fore and bottom edges and just a few spots to the terminal leaves. India is, in many ways, an archetypal work of Churchill’s "wilderness years" in the 1930s, which saw him out of power and out of favor, unable to leverage the policies to which he nonetheless applied himself with characteristic vigor and eloquence. Churchill spent formative time as a young 19th century cavalry officer fighting on the northwest Indian frontier, about which he would write his first published book. He certainly did not adopt an early progressive attitude toward relinquishing control over the crown jewel of Britain's colonial empire. Nonetheless, it is instructive to remember that many of Churchill's dire warnings about Indian independence proved prophetic. Churchill had warned that too swift a British withdrawal from India would lead to bloody civil war and sectarian strife between Hindus and Muslims, Hindu domination, and destabilizing political balkanization of the subcontinent. All these predictions came to pass and, to a considerable extent, persist today.Nonetheless, relinquishing India seemed more than simply a matter of policy. There was perhaps more than just characteristic wartime defiance in his 10 November 1942 utterance, "We have not entered this war for profit or expansion Let me, however, make this clear I have not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire. For that task, if ever it were prescribed, someone else would have to be found." Someone else was found; Churchill’s wartime premiership fell to Labour in the July 1945 General Election, relegating Churchill to Leader of the Opposition. In that capacity Churchill addressed the House of Commons on 6 March 1947 regarding the Indian Independence Bill of Prime Minister Clement Attlee’s Government: "It is with deep grief I watch the clattering down of the British Empire, with all its glories and all the services it has rendered to mankind at least, let us not add – by shameful flight, by a premature, hurried scuttle to the pangs of sorrow so many of us feel, the taint and smear of shame." On 15 August 1947 the Indian Independence Bill took effect, creating the independent nations of India and Pakistan and birthing the world’s most populous democracy in what was arguably the largest single act of political liberation in history. Independence also unfettered religious and communal strife that has lethally festered and flared ever since, claiming Gandhi himself in January 1948.Reference: Cohen A92.1, Woods/ICS A38(a), Langworth p.150.