Q: Is it real?

I have a first Amer­i­can edi­tion of Churchill’s Boer war book, Lon­don to Lady­smith via Pre­to­ria (New York: Long­mans Green, 1900, lat­er part of the com­bined vol­ume The Boer War). On the inside cov­er is a label with a sig­na­ture of Win­ston Churchill.Do you think that it is an orig­i­nal or a sig­na­tures label print­ed in quantities?

The first line reads, “duly Inscribed” and the sig­na­ture looks like his (suit­ably aged ink), but I have nev­er encoun­tered “duly Inscribed” on anoth­er book signed by Churchill. How­ev­er, since this is a card obvi­ous­ly past­ed in, I sup­pose it’s pos­si­ble. —L.C., Que­bec, Canada

A: Likely, yes

The pen used had a broad­er nib than the ones Churchill favored. Of course it might have belonged to some­one who hand­ed it to him to inscribe. I believe it’s Churchill’s hand­writ­ing, but from a much lat­er date. In 1900 his sig­na­ture was less expan­sive than it became in lat­er years, and this looks more like post-1930.

What catch­es the eye is the “duly Inscribed,” a nota­tion I’ve nev­er before encoun­tered among sig­na­tures in his books. How­ev­er, it seems inno­cent enough. Told it was for a book, he might have felt it appro­pri­ate to “duly inscribe” the label for the owner.

From your pho­to it looks suit­ably aged and seems to have been there a long time. Inscribed books or pho­tographs with the sig­na­tures past­ed in or added to the mat­te are some­times encoun­tered. They are not, of course, as valu­able as books the author per­son­al­ly inscribed, par­tic­u­lar­ly when he named the recipient.

I doubt this is some­thing that was print­ed in quan­ti­ties, like the well-known print­ed holo­graph thank-you notes. I can­not tell for cer­tain from a pho­to that it’s writ­ten in ink, although it seems to be.

Q: Printed signatures

I recent­ly acquired a copy of Paint­ing as a Pas­time, reprint­ed 1965.  Across  from the title page is the mem­o­rable pho­to of Mr. Churchill at an easel.   Under this pho­to is his sig­na­ture.  The sig­na­ture seems authen­tic, but I am not an expert and am unsure.  For this edi­tion, is there a  sig­na­ture print­ed under the pho­to?  —W.R., Seattle

A: A typical example

Yes; it’s a print­ed sig­na­ture, present in every copy of the book. When Churchill actu­al­ly signed copies, it would usu­al­ly be on the first free end­pa­per, or occa­sion­al­ly on the title page.

Paint­ing as a Pas­time, Churchill’s charm­ing essay on his chief hob­by. (He had oth­er hobbies—he was also big on books and bricks.) The essay was first pub­lished in The Strand mag­a­zine in 1921. Reprint­ed in Thoughts and Adven­tures, it was first pub­lished as a vol­ume in its own right in 1948. It has noth­ing what­ev­er to do with war or pol­i­tics, and every­thing to do with hav­ing fun. Numer­ous reprints make it read­i­ly available.

For lovers of his paint­ings, the com­plete cat­a­logue is  Sir Win­ston Churchill’s Life through His Paint­ings and Churchill: The Artist and His Paint­ings (Philadel­phia: Run­ning Press, 2003). This doc­u­ments all 550+ paint­ings, traces their where­abouts, and pic­tures most of them in full col­or. I also rec­om­mend Paul Rafferty’s mas­ter­ful Churchill Paint­ing on the French Riv­iera (Lon­don: Uni­corn Pub­lish­ing, 2020). See link below.

Related articles

“Don’t Fall for Them! Fac­sim­i­le Churchill Holo­graph Sig­na­tures,” 2023.

“A ‘Painta­cious’ Mas­ter­piece: Paul Raf­fer­ty on Churchill’s Riv­iera Art,” 2021.

“Paint­ing à Deux: Churchill’s and Alexander’s Por­traits of Lake Como,” by Paul Raf­fer­ty, 2020.

“Pro­vide for Your Library,” 2010.