Selling the Myriad Products of Churchill's Toil and Sweat
There is an enthusiastic bite -- nipper unknown -- taken from the blue front cover of a first-edition copy of "The Unrelenting Struggle," a collection of Winston Churchill speeches published in 1942. It's yours to chew over for $60 at Chartwell Booksellers, a store that caters to Winnie's most loyal -- ravenous -- fans. According to proprietor Barry Singer, Chartwell, which is now in its 25th anniversary year, is the world's largest dealer in Churchill materials -- books, photographs, signed documents and ephemera. There's even a Toby jug or two.
Out-of-print collectible copies of Sir Winston's 34-book oeuvre, many of them first editions, line the back shelves of the store, which is tucked into the arcade of Park Avenue Plaza, an office building on East 52nd Street.
"My Early Life," a memoir; the multivolume "Marlborough: His Life & Times," a magisterial biography of Churchill's ancestor; "The World Crisis," a history of World War I; "Savrola," a novel; "The Second World War," the history that helped the author capture the Nobel Prize for literature -- they're all here at prices as high as $150,000, although the collected World War II speeches can be had for as little as $50.
"Churchill wrote to pay the bills," said Mr. Singer who keeps the most prized volumes behind glass or in a safe. "He lived the life of a very wealthy man and never had much money. When bills came due, he would write a book -- which is why there are so many of them."
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Out-of-print collectible copies of Sir Winston's 34-book oeuvre, many of them first editions, line the back shelves of the store, which is tucked into the arcade of Park Avenue Plaza, an office building on East 52nd Street.
"My Early Life," a memoir; the multivolume "Marlborough: His Life & Times," a magisterial biography of Churchill's ancestor; "The World Crisis," a history of World War I; "Savrola," a novel; "The Second World War," the history that helped the author capture the Nobel Prize for literature -- they're all here at prices as high as $150,000, although the collected World War II speeches can be had for as little as $50.
"Churchill wrote to pay the bills," said Mr. Singer who keeps the most prized volumes behind glass or in a safe. "He lived the life of a very wealthy man and never had much money. When bills came due, he would write a book -- which is why there are so many of them."