The River War

London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1940. Hardcover. This collectible Second World War reprint of The River War features the elusive dust jacket. Originally published in 1899, The River War recounts Churchill's experiences and reflections concerning British involvement in the Sudan, including Churchill’s participation in “the last great British cavalry charge”. In 1933, a so-called "Second Cheap Edition" was made from plates of the 1902 edition with a bibliographically significant new introduction by the author explaining that "A generation has grown up which knows little of why we are in Egypt and the Sudan." There were ultimately five printings of this edition with at least seven different dust jackets issued (at least two for the 1933 second printing and two for the final, 1951 printing).

Of these seven dust jackets, among the most scarce is the dust jacket for this 1941 printing - the only wartime issue of this edition and featuring a jacket unique to this printing. Churchill’s bibliographer, Ronald Cohen, definitively asserts that the publication date was 28 February 1941, not “1940” as printed on both the title page and copyright page. This was less than 10 months after the author had become wartime prime minister. When this printing was published, the author – once an itinerant cavalry officer and war correspondent during the reign of Queen Victoria – was leading Britain’s desperate struggle to survive the early catastrophes of the Second World War, including the Battle of the Atlantic, the fall of France, the evacuation at Dunkirk, and the Battle of Britain, with both sustained aerial attacks on civilian populations and British cities, and the real prospect of Nazi invasion of England.

Survival rate for these jackets is quite low, perhaps owing in part to the thin, white paper on which they were printed. The books beneath also proved fragile, bound in a coarse, dark lilac cloth susceptible to soiling, fading, and wear, with contents prone to spotting and toning.

Here is a very good copy in a good dust jacket. The cloth binding retains unfaded color, with none of the toning typical for unjacketed copies. Light wear is confined to spine ends and corners. The contents show only a single previous owner mark - an Edinburgh address and telephone number embossed on the upper front free endpaper. Spotting is primarily confined to the page edges and prelims. The dust jacket is unclipped. Shallow losses along the top edge, as well as .75 and .5 deep losses at the top edge of the front face and a smaller loss at the lower front corner, have been patched in an amateur but serviceable fashion on the jacket verso, giving the appearance of a complete jacket. We would price this copy considerably higher were it not for these reasonably unobtrusive "repairs". The jacket shows moderate overall soiling and staining, heavier to the spine, and is protected with a clear, removable, archival cover.

In 1883, Mahdist forces of messianic leader Mohammed Ahmed overwhelmed British-led forces, precipitating British withdrawal from the Sudan. In 1885, General Gordon famously lost his life in a doomed defense of Khartoum, where he had been sent to lead evacuation of Egyptian forces. General Kitchener reoccupied the Sudan in 1898. With him was a very young Winston Churchill, who participated in “the last great British cavalry charge” during the battle of Omdurman in September 1898, where the Mahdist forces were decisively defeated. Writing about the British campaign in the Sudan, Churchill - a young officer in a colonial British army - is unusually sympathetic to the Mahdist forces and critical of Imperial cynicism and cruelty. This work offers us the candid perspective of the future 20th century icon from the distinctly 19th century battlefields where Churchill learned to write and earned his early fame.

Reference: Cohen A2.4.c, Woods/ICS A2(da.3), Langworth p.33