Category: Literary

Essays
Unique and unprecedented, the Collected Essays were a crucial addition to the published canon. Shown are the two original bindings: Centenary Limited Edition (vellum, left) and the Centenary Edition in navy quarter-morocco. (Photos: Mark Weber & Chartwell Booksellers)
Churchill’s Collected Essays, Invaluably Compiled by Michael Wolff

Churchill’s Collected Essays, Invaluably Compiled by Michael Wolff

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Michael Wolff's task as editor was to compile Churchill's periodical writings not already in the Collected Works. The result was four satisfying volumes that would then have cost a fortune to acquire in original form, assuming one could even locate them. Many periodicals were obscure, quickly read and discarded, their contents forgotten. Thus the unique value of the Collected Essays.

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Works
Above and below: The 34 volumes of Collected Works, in the one and only bespoke bookcase, used in early promotions. The cased set was presented to Sir Iain Stewart, whose name is on the brass plaque. (Mark Weber photo)
The Sordid History of Churchill’s Collected Works

The Sordid History of Churchill’s Collected Works

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The Collected Works are less important than their spectacular appearance suggests. However incomplete, they do constitute the first collected edition. But lacking the original texts, they are not bibliographically compelling: “expensive reprints,” as one cynic put it. Collectors prefer to hold a book in the form Sir Winston first gave it to the world (errors and all). So the Works will never replace first editions.

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Rhetoric
Congress, 26 December 1941: Churchill strikes a speaker’s pose inherited from his father. At left rear: William P. Cole (D.-Md.) temporary Speaker of the House. Right rear: Vice President and Senate President Henry Wallace (who occasionally cracked a smile). Left front: Alben Barkley (D.-Ky.), Senate Majority Leader, later Truman’s Vice President (thanks for the ID Prof. Warren Kimball). Can any reader identify the man at right front? Looks like Carl Albert (D.-Ok.), but he was not in Congress until 1947. (National Archives, Hillsdale College Press)
Scaffolding Rhetoric: Churchill in Congress, 1941

Scaffolding Rhetoric: Churchill in Congress, 1941

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"When we look at the resources of the United States and the British Empire compared to those of Japan; when we remember those of China, which have so long valiantly withstood invasion and tyranny—and when also we observe the Russian menace which hangs over Japan—it becomes still more difficult to reconcile Japanese action with prudence or even with sanity. What kind of a people do they think we are?" With these words the Senators and Representatives stood roaring approval. He had them in his hands now.

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Armistice Day
“The Glorious Dead”: The Cenotaph, London. (Paul the Archivist, Creative commons)
Churchill on Armistice Day: War, Peace and Foreboding

Churchill on Armistice Day: War, Peace and Foreboding

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"Is this the end? Is it to be merely a chapter in a cruel and senseless story? Will a new generation in their turn be immolated to square the black accounts of Teuton and Gaul? Will our children bleed and gasp again in devastated lands? Or will there spring from the very fires of conflict that reconciliation of the three giant combatants, which would unite their genius and secure to each in safety and freedom a share in rebuilding the glory of Europe?" —WSC

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Christian
Coventry Cathedral was severely damaged in the Blitz of 14–15 November 1940. Churchill visited on 28 September 1941, with Provost Richard Howard and Mayor J.A. Moseley. At right in the second row is WSC’s ubiquitous bodyguard Walter Thompson. (Photo by Capt. Horton, War Office, Crown copyright expired)
What Winston Churchill Meant by “Christian Civilization”

What Winston Churchill Meant by “Christian Civilization”

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When Churchill referred to Chris­t­ian civil­i­za­tion, he did not mean to exclude Jews or Bud­dhists or Mus­lims. Just as, to him, the word “man” meant human­ity, his allu­sions to Chris­tian­ity embod­ied prin­ci­ples he con­sid­ered uni­ver­sal. He meant the Ten Com­mand­ments (a “judg­men­tal” set of moral imper­a­tives now expunged from cer­tain pub­lic places). He meant the Ser­mon on the Mount and the Golden Rule. He meant char­ity, for­give­ness, courage.

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Sybarite
Churchill’s Laurania: “It was the first rain after the summer heats, and it marked the beginning of that delightful autumn climate which has made the Lauranian capital the home of the artist, the invalid, and the sybarite.” (Woodcut by André Collot from the 1950 Monaco edition)
Churchill Quotations: “The Artist, the Invalid, and the Sybarite”

Churchill Quotations: “The Artist, the Invalid, and the Sybarite”

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Churchill only used "artist - invalid - sybarite" twice, and very early on. Evidently it didn't "stick" as well as others he repeated decades apart. If it had, he might have applied it to Morocco or the South of France, where he was all three of those things from time to time. He found both to be perfect for convalescing, painting, or enjoying the luxuries of life. (Of course, he knew where to stay!)

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Punch
“Mr. Churchill and Friend. ‘Winston: We have both made history and we have both written it. Let us exchange headgear.’” (Oversize collars and absurdly small hats were a feature of Churchill caricatures between the wars.) Cartoon by Leonard Raven-Hill, 14 February 1923. (From “Churchill in Punch”)
Echoes and Memories: Foreword to “Churchill in Punch” by Gary Stiles

Echoes and Memories: Foreword to “Churchill in Punch” by Gary Stiles

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Gary Stiles's new book, "Churchill and Punch," captures their long relationship during an unprecedented career. The best artists of their time represented Punch’s often querulous, at times hilarious, sometimes wry, yet almost always respectful attitude toward Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill. In these pages, Gary Stiles and those artists renew those echoes and memories for future generations.

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Library
The Chartwell library today. On the far wall is a model of the Gold Beach Mulberry Harbor, conceived by Churchill to float up and down with the tide, facilitating the landing of tanks and heavy equipment for the 1944 invasion of France. (National Trust, Chartwell. For more interior photos see https://bit.ly/3Mpemp1)
What Happened to the Library at Chartwell?

What Happened to the Library at Chartwell?

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In 1992 Michael Wybrow and I spent a day in the Chartwell library. Security was less of a concern then, and the administrator, Jeane Broome, kindly let us examine books closely. We were able to survey all the shelves and even to open (very carefully!) the odd volume. We did not attempt an inventory, but did learn the fate of many volumes.

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Gettysburg
“The Treaty of Harper’s Ferry, which was signed between the Union and Confederate States on 6 September 1863, embodied the two fundamental propositions: that the South was independent, and the slaves were free.” —WSC, 1930
Fantasies: Trollope’s Brittanula, Churchill’s Battle of Gettysburg

Fantasies: Trollope’s Brittanula, Churchill’s Battle of Gettysburg

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1930: Kaiser Wilhelm II may today occupy "the most splendid situation in Europe." But "let him not forget that he might well have found himself eating the bitter bread of exile, a dethroned sovereign and a broken man loaded with unutterable reproach...if Lee had not won the Battle of Gettysburg."

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Poy
Cover detail from the deluxe edition of “Poy’s Churchill” by Fieldfare, 1954.
Poy (Percy Fearon): The Classic Churchill Cartoonist

Poy (Percy Fearon): The Classic Churchill Cartoonist

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"Caricature was the object of all Poy’s work, but he never dipped his pen in vitriol…. He was not unlike a modern Aesop who…drew the simple truth with devastating clearness. Looking at any of his pictures you laugh because of their very rightness. It is only afterwards that you realise the brilliance of the drawing, and are staggered by the genius that created it."

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RML Books

Richard Langworth’s Most Popular Books & eBooks


Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

Churchill by Himself

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