THE GREAT DOMINION: Winston Churchill in Canada 1900-1954.

First edition, first printing. Signed by the author. Original black cloth lettered in silver to the spine, in dustwrapper. A very near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the contents clean throughout. In the near fine dustwrapper with a couple of scratches to the rear panel. Not price-clipped ($45.00 to the upper edge of the front flap). Loosely laid in is an invitation to a talk given by David Dilks ('Positively my last appearance': Churchill's farewell visit to Ottowa) at the Royal Commonwealth Society in London on Monday 23 March 1987.

Inscribed by David Dilks in black ink to the front free endpaper "Kenneth. / With warm thanks for / our many years of / friendship. / David. / Leeds, May, 2005". The recipient was chief editor at the publisher Cassell in London (he may have retired by 2005) and had worked with Dilks on a volume of Alexander Cadogan's wartime diaries published in 1971. Dilks, Professor of International History at the University of Leeds between 1970 and 1991, was later Vice Chancellor of the University of Hull, and served as President of the International Committee for the History of the Second World War between 1992 and 2000. As a young man, he had worked for Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan and Alexander Cadogan. "Winston Churchill had a relationship with Canada that he could not claim with any other Commonwealth country. He visited Canada nine times over the first half of the twentieth century, travelled from coast to coast, and understood the country and its leaders - and people - in a way that few writers have appreciated. In 'The Great Dominion', David Dilks has selected excerpts from newspapers, speeches, letters and diaries to bring to life every one of those visits, giving preference wherever possible to Churchill's own voice –and what a voice it was. This is a book for anyone interested in Canada's history or fascinated by the phenomenon that was Winston Churchill." (from the jacket).