The Second World War: The Grand Alliance.

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,, 1950. Family presentation copy First edition, first printing, presentation copy to his eldest child, inscribed on the front free endpaper, "To Diana from her Father Winston S. Churchill 1950". After Diana's birth in 1909, Churchill wrote to his wife, "I wonder what she will grow into, & whether she will be lucky or unlucky... She ought to have some rare qualities both of mind & body. But these do not always mean happiness or peace. Still I think a bright star shines for her" (Soames, p. 29). Yet her life was not a happy one, and she was plagued by depression. After a brief marriage to a South African mining heir, in 1936 she married the Conservative MP Duncan Sandys and had three children. During the Second World War, she was an officer in the Women's Royal Naval Service, then joined the Red Cross and worked as a nurse during the London Blitz. She divorced Sandys in 1960, and started work with the Samaritans. She died from an overdose of sleeping pills in 1963 (which was reported by the coroner as suicide). The loss hit the elderly Churchill very hard, and in the remaining two years of his life, he was notably more subdued. The Grand Alliance is the third volume of Churchill's Second World War memoirs, covering the year 1941 and the new alliances with America and the Soviet Union. As with all six volumes in the series, the US edition preceded the UK edition. The earliest presentations from Churchill are always found in the US editions. Octavo. Original red cloth, spine and front cover lettered in gilt on black ground. With dust jacket, possibly supplied. Housed in a blue quarter morocco slipcase and chemise. Book label of William A. Strutz (1934-2024) to inside of chemise. Book and unclipped jacket lightly rubbed: a very good copy in very good jacket. Cohen A240.1(III).a. Mary Soames, ed., Winston and Clementine: The Personal Letters of the Churchills, 2001.