[CHURCHILLIANA] BYRD, Harry F[lood]

The Churchill I Knew

Winchester, VA: Farmers and Mercahnts National Bank, [1965]. First Edition. 12mo pamphlet. Staple-bound, printed card wrappers; [8]pp; frontispiece portrait. Slight toning at wrapper margins, else about fine.

Extremely uncommon memorial tribute to Churchill by Virginia's famous segregationist Governor and Senator Harry Flood Byrd (1887-1966). Published in the brief interval between Churchill's death in January, 1965 and Byrd's debilitation from a brain tumor beginning the same year (he would die in October, 1966, spending the final four months of his life in a coma). Byrd, a prototypical Dixiecrat, was a giant if malign figure in Virginia and national politics from the Great Depression through the mid-Sixties, an ardent anti-New Dealer and, later, a key figure in the massive resistance campaign against school desegregation in the 1950s. Byrd and Churchill met on two occasions - in 1929, when Churchill visited Virginia to tour Civil War battlefields; and in 1951, when Byrd visited London as part of senate delegation; both visits are briefly but colorfully described in short memoir. Published for local distribution in Byrd's home town of Winchester, Virginia, the pamphlet is notably uncommon (even locally); no other copies traced in commerce; OCLC locates four copies, all in the U.S.

Price: $250.00

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