24 CHAUDHURI, Nirad C. Culture in the Vanity Bag: being an Essay on Clothing and Adornment in Passing and Abiding. Bombay: Jalco Publishing House, 1976 presented to jackie o Scarce first edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper: “To Mrs Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Nirad C. Chaudhuri”, with a few authorial corrections, and occasional marginal pencillings, presumably by Jackie Kennedy. This is a serious and scholarly short history of Indian dress by the “forgotten visionary of British India”. “A talent in a three-piece suit with an honorary doctorate from Oxford and honored as a Commander of the British Empire, he could memorize books and reprimand Oxford dons for forgetting the name of a particular military order. To his critics, this was performative; certainly, Chaudhuri carefully manufactured his persona because he knew his audience. But that criticism alone fails to explain his relentless, monomaniacal crusade to chronicle the decline of civilizations” (Maitra). In 1962 Jackie Kennedy visited India and Pakistan on a goodwill tour and made a great impression, not least for her wardrobe. Life magazine reported that “Wherever she went, there were presents. Mrs. Kennedy remarked ‘It’s been a dream’” (cited in Kamath). Chaudhuri was invited by Jackie to write the biography of her second husband, Aristotle Onassis, but declined. Octavo. Original plain off-white boards, unlettered. With dust jacket. Housed in a custom green cloth flap case. With 3 pages of line drawings. With Sotheby’s estate sale bookplate loosely inserted (23–26 April 1996). Corners of binding lightly bumped, unclipped jacket with a few nicks, chips and minor creasing. A very good copy. ¶ M. V. Kamath, United States and India 1776–1976 , 1976; Sumantra Maitra, “In Search of Nirad Chaudhuri: The Forgotten Visionary of British India”, The Spectator World , August 2021. £2,000 [158140] 25 CHURCHILL, Winston S. His Life in Photographs. Edited by Randolph S. Churchill and Helmut Gernsheim. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1955
Charles Rhys, eighth Baron Dynevor (1899–1962), who acceded to the title in 1956. It is accompanied by two typed letters signed, both on Downing Street letterhead, from Churchill’s principal private secretary Jock Colville to Roger Senhouse of publisher Secker and Warburg, remarking that he has been informed by “Mrs Charles Rhys” of his proposed publication of a “book of photographs and portraits of the Prime Minister” but Churchill “does not feel that he can assist you in this proposal” (21 April 1954); the second thanks Senhouse on Churchill’s behalf for sending a copy of Helmut Gernsheim’s monograph on Roger Fenton (2 December 1954); together with a retained copy of Senhouse’s typed letter to Colville (26 November 1954), mentioning that he has written to Charles Rhys concerning Gernsheims’s book, and enclosing the same. Senhouse and Rhys were contemporaries at Eton. After education at Eton and Sandhurst, Rhys was commissioned into the Grenadier Guards, and served as Conservative MP for Romford and then Guilford. In government he was Stanley Baldwin’s parliamentary private secretary from 1927 to 1929. Churchill had trained with the 2nd battalion Grenadier Guards (Dec. 1914–Jan. 1915) and Rhys was awarded the MC for his part in the British expedition against the Bolsheviks. His wife,
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27 CHURCHILL, Winston S. – DAVIES, Joseph E. Mission to Moscow. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1941 to the greatest of all englishmen First edition, presentation copy to Winston Churchill, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper: “To the greatest of all Englishmen – with apology for trying to add something to the solution of ‘the riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’ – with Christmas greetings Joseph E. Davies. Dec. 23. 1941. To the right honourable premier Winston S. Churchill The White House”. Davies served as US ambassador to the Soviet Union, Belgium, and Luxembourg, and as a special assistant to Secretary of State Cordell Hull. His inscription refers to Churchill’s famous pronouncement of the puzzle of Russia after the Nazi-Soviet pact. Churchill’s posthumous bookplate and that of his son Randolph are mounted to the front pastedown. Octavo. Original black cloth, spine lettered in gilt. A little soiled and worn, a good copy. £1,500 [159773]
Hope Soames, with whom he had eloped, was the mother by her first marriage of Christopher Soames; Soames married Mary Churchill, the youngest child of Winston and Clementine. Quarto. Original dark red cloth, gilt-lettered spine. With dust jacket. Portrait frontispiece and illustrations from photographs throughout. Loosely inserted flyer for the Winston Churchill Memorial Appeal; Times newspaper clipping from 1994 concerning Churchill’s birthday in 1954. Binding sunned at foot of spine and lower edge of covers. Jacket neatly repaired on verso with archival tape, otherwise rather rubbed, chipped and creased, spine toned and back panel slightly cockled. A good copy. £1,250 [159772] 26 CHURCHILL, Winston S. A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. London: Cassell and Company Ltd, 1956–58 in contemporary half morocco First editions, handsomely bound, of Churchill’s great history of Britain, the British Empire, and the United States. 4 volumes, octavo (235 × 153 mm). Contemporary blue half morocco, triple red morocco labels, blue cloth sides, marbled endpapers, gilt edges. Illustrated with maps and genealogical tables. Monogram bookplate to front pastedowns. Spines ever so slightly sunned, trivial sporadic foxing. An excellent copy. ¶ Cohen A267.1(I)–(IV). £2,000 [156501]
23 CATLIN, George. North American Indians. Edinburgh: John Grant, 1926 in fresh condition A profusely illustrated and classic history of the Native American peoples, handsomely produced. “Catlin was the first to picture them so extensively in their own territories and one of the few to portray them as fellow human beings” (Watson). His eight years among the major tribes of the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains resulted in an enormous collection of artefacts as well as more than 400 paintings, including portraits and scenes of tribal life. The resulting book, first published with hand-coloured plates in 1841, is “one of the most original, authentic and popular works on the subject” (Sabin). 2 volumes, large octavo. Original red cloth, spines and front covers lettered in gilt and stamped with pictorial illustrations in gilt and black, top edges gilt, others uncut. With 320 colour illustrations on 180 plates, including 3 maps (one folding), after the author. Cloth notably bright, a little bowing to covers and rubbing to extremities, contents clean, plates fresh. A very good copy indeed. ¶ Hassrick 15; Sabin 11536. Bruce Watson, “George Catlin’s Obsession”, Smithsonian Magazine , Dec. 2002, accessible online. £1,250 [155302]
presented to a close family friend of the churchills
First edition, inscribed on the front free endpaper by the editor, Churchill’s son Randolph: “Charles from Randolph, Christmas 1955”. The recipient is
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