My Early Life; Thoughts and Adventures; Great Contemporaries; Step by Step. by CHURCHILL, Winston S - 1947

London: Odhams Press Ltd,, 1947. Presentation copies to Air Commodore Taffy Powell A presentation set to his pilot, inscribed by the author on the initial blank of My Early Life "To Air Commodore G. Powell from Winston S. Churchill 1948", signed on the initial blank of Thoughts and Adventures, and initialled in the following two volumes. Powell recounts the story of the volumes in his memoirs: "In my Ferry Command days my job had involved me in the organisation and supervision of a number of Mr. Winston Churchill's air journeys and it was nice that when he was out of office from 1945 to 1951 he remembered those war responsibilities and used to call on me for advice and to organise the flying that he was called upon to do... After his last flight to North Africa he gave me a handsomely bound and autographed set of his early works so that I am not without ready reminders of him but it is still the small personal memories that one treasures most" (Powell, Ferryman, 1982, p. 154 - a copy is included for reference). Ferry Command was the secretive RAF body which moved aircraft from their place of manufacture in the US and Canada to the frontline in Britain and North Africa. Air Commodore Griffith Powell served in the Command in the war, and following the end of the conflict pioneered the development of Air Ferries between Britain and the continent. The books are the first Odhams editions, all originally published in the 1930s, and here republished for a post-War audience. 4 volumes, octavo (208 x 131 mm). Contemporary red morocco by Zaehnsdorf for presentation (unattributed), spines lettered in gilt, gilt facsimile signature to front covers, gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers, gilt edges. Unfortunately sometime water stained with morocco discoloured, but bindings holding firm, contents with some staining in the initial and final leaves but afterwards clean. A sound set. Cohen A91.9; A95.5; A105.9; A111.4.