The World Crisis six volume set by Winston S. Churchill first edition 1923-31

London: Thornton Butterworth Limited, 1923-1931
 
8vo., 6 vols; original navy publisher’s cloth, blind stamped to upper board with titles inside rectangular border; lettered in gilt along spine, with volume number denoted by number of stars; with errata notes to Vol I, IV and V as called for; with numerous maps (some folding, some two-tone, mostly in black and white), illustrations, diagrams, and pages of facsimile handwriting, both in-text and full-page; boards a little dirtied, scratched and stained, with light spotting to the outer edges and prelims in many of the volumes; endpapers browned; contemporary ownership initials and date to front paste-down of Vol I, which also has a hand-written library sticker to the same; internally rather clean, improving in cleanliness as the set progresses; some of the bindings a little shaky, Vol VI cracked along gutter to both front and rear boards, webbing showing, but holding; spine tips compressed; publisher’s advertisement postcard tipped-in to Vol II, and bookmark for the Royal Exchange loosely inserted to Vol VI; very good, overall, the cloth remaining bright and totally unsunned along the backstrips. 
 
First editions, first printings all. 
 
Churchill’s account of the First World War encompasses the years 1911 to the aftermath, his thoughts following Armistice day in 1918, and the repercussions which stretched well into the 1920s, with the years from 1916 to 1918 divided into two volumes. Although analytical in tone, it is also seen by many as Churchill’s attempt to justify his own role in the events that occured, and can therefore be seen as part military history, and part memoir. Initially serialised in The Times, Churchill was noted to have remarked at one event in 1921 that it was ‘exhilarating’ to write for half a crown a word - in the end, his account totalled 3261 pages. 
 
The first volume begins in 1870, with the Franco-Prussian war, before covering the run-up to the outbreak of the war in France. Volume 2 ends with the Dardanelles campaign in Gallipoli. Volumes 3 and 4 begin with the Allied High Command and include chapters on the Somme and Passchendaele, as well as Lloyd George becoming Prime Minister, and finally, ‘Victory’. “Will a new generation in their turn be immolated to square the black accounts of Teuton and Gaul?”, he writes. “Will our children bleed and gasp again in devastated lands? Or will there spring from the very fires of conflict that reconciliation of the three giant combatants, which would unite their genius and secure to each in safety and freedom a share in rebuilding the glory of Europe?"
 
The final two volumes focus on Churchill’s thoughts concerning the years after the war, and in particular the Peace Treaties at Versailles, in which, in perhaps a slightly prophetic tone, he criticises the harshness of the agreement. In the final volume, he revisits the events leading to the war “told from the Eastern Theatre… the conflict between Russia and the two Teutonic Empires”, including the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. 
 
Churchill’s insights are valuable not only for their contribution from the standpoint of a War Councillor, but also for his own first-hand experiences - he saw active service on the Western front and, in 1916, commanded a battalion in the line at 'Plugstreet' in Flanders. The work received mixed reviews upon publication, although it was referred to favourably by both John Maynard Keynes and T. E. Lawrence, the latter who described it as "far and away the best war-book I’ve yet read". A backbencher at the time of publication, it was Churchill’s writing which supplemented his salary, and he was able to purchase Chartwell, his beloved home, in 1922 from the Royalties received from this very publication.
 
One of the more up together sets seen in recent years, in the original publisher’s cloth.