Lot 478

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Description:


'What kind of a people do they think we are?' a pair of wartime speeches by Winston Churchill in a single printing, 8pp. 8vo., first edition, second state. This pamphlet contains two famous addresses: (1) Churchill's speech of December 26, 1941 to a joint session of the U.S. Congress and (2) the famous "Some chicken, some neck!" speech of 30 December to both houses of the Canadian Parliament. In the days after the Japanese attack, the United States formally entered the war, marking the end of Britain's lonely stand against Hitler's Germany, which it had sustained since the fall of France. Churchill immediately decided to travel to the United States, and on December 12, 1941 he boarded the battleship Duke of York and began the 10-day trip across the Atlantic. His speech to Congress was sober, resolved, and eloquently defiant, but of course also featured his classic wit: '...I cannot help reflecting that if my father had been American and my mother British, instead of the other way around, I might have got here on my own...' His speech was also an important personal introduction to the elected leaders of the U.S. In his speech to the Canadian Parliament, Churchill was characteristically defiant: '...When I warned them that Britain would fight alone whatever they did, their generals told their Prime Minister and his divided Cabinet, 'In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken.' Some chicken; some neck...' Very good, in custom clamshell box with leather spine, gilt title. Ex: Bauman Rare Books.

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February 8, 2021 10:00 AM EST
Chesapeake City, MD, US

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