Lord Randolph Churchill

London and New York: Macmillan and Co. Limited, 1907. Second Edition [being the First Edition in one volume]. Hardcover. Very good +/very good +. A Very Good + or better copy of the Second Edition, being the first edition in a single volume with the printed/typed dedication page reading: "TO // CHARLES RICHARD JOHN SPENCER-CHURCHILL // THIS BOOK // IN ALL FAITHFUL FRIENDSHIP // IS INSCRIBED". The Volume is bound in the Publisher's burgundy cloth and wears its RATHER SCARCE, PUBLISHER-ADDED 1925 DUST JACKET. A very good+ or better clean copy with the burgundy color slightly faded on spine, in very good to Very Good + jacket which is darkened on the spine, but the lettering remains readable, and shows shallow chipping to the spine ends and bottom of spine not affecting lettering, plus one very small chip in spine below the title not affecting lettering and slight closed tearing to the spine's leading portion a touch below the author's name. The front and rear jacket panels are complete. The spine panel also shows a few small light spots on jacket spine, but it remains a very good to very good + jacket. The front free endpaper has been signed and dated Sir John Heydon Romaine Stokes (1917-2003) and dated June 1937. Stokes was a major in the Royal Fusiliers in the Second World War and a Member of Parliament from 1970 to 1992, and he appears to have purchased the book shortly before WWII. The jacket is Macmillan's 1920s style brown paper which the Macmillan often added to earlier titles still in stock to update their advertising. The rear panel of the jacket lists "Some Standard Biographies" including Sir Sidney Lee's King Edward VII. The ad for King Edward announces vol. 2 for Autumn 1925, thus dating the jacket. A clean, square copy, very scarce in this jacket and virtually unobtainable in the original 1907 jacket. NOTE: We have reliable information that, with respect to first edition issued in two volumes, only five (5) jackets are known to survive for Volume I and only three (3) survive for Volume II. We quite seldom see a copy of this second edition (issued in only one volume) in the dust jacket and and conclude that describing this jacket as being "RATHER SCARCE" is justified. A RATHER SCARCE COPY INDEED.