RARE EARLY AUTOGRAPH OF WINSTON CHURCHILL ON A LETTER OF RESPONSE TO REV. WILLIAM T. MCCORMICK, LIKELY REGARDING HIS ANTI-SMOKING CRUSADE.

Included in the auction are a period appropriate photograph of a very young Winston Churchill. It is neatly mounted with remains of adhesive on reverse and one small rubbing at middle upper right of the background.

And then an envelope dated February 6, 1905. At this time, Rev. William T. McCormick was preparing a publication against juvenile smoking and seeking recommendations and contributions from prominent men in nearly every field. The letter has long gone, but the envelope, addressed in a secretarial hand, is signed in a nice, clean example, lower left, by Winston Churchill himself.

Churchill was just getting started with his career at this point. At just 29 years of age, he had just finished the two volume biography of his father, Sir Randolph Churchill, and would later that same year be appointed Under Secretary of the Colonies. An unusual early example.