Winston S. Churchll Archives - Richard M. Langworth

“American Jennie” and Other Books on Lady Randolph Churchill

29 May 2020 Comments 4 Comments

A reader requests recommendations for good books about Sir Winston’s mother, Lady Randolph Churchill (1854-1921). The most rounded and thoroughly sourced is Anne Sebba’s American Jennie (2007). Barbara Langworth published a thorough review and analysis of Jennie’s many accomplishments, below. Scroll to the end for a Bibliography and commentary on other books about Lady Randolph. RML

Barbara F. Langworth: The Right Parent Survived

Jennie Churchill: Winston’s American Mother, by Anne Sebba (London, Murray, 2007). American Jennie: The Remarkable Life of Lady Randolph Churchill), (New York: Norton, 2007).

It may seem a new story to many readers, since the previous biographies of Lady Randolph Churchill date back up to eight decades.…

“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster”: Charles Krauthammer 1950-2018

22 June 2018 Comments 6 Comments

“CK,” Churchillian

The best editor I ever had wrote: “There is nothing to be said when a friend dies, even among people whose trade is words.” Much nevertheless is being said about Charles Krauthammer. That is fitting, and it is what we have the Internet for. (Some of the most touching tributes are linked below. Fox News produced a very fine tribute, “Krauthammer in His Own Words” click here.)

My editor meant, rather, that for some, words are inadequate against “a big, empty hole where there was once someone you loved. And all the talk in the world won’t change that.…

Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat: Origins of a Famous Phrase

30 April 2018 Comments 0 Comments

Though he gave permanent life to blood, toil, tears and sweat, Churchill’s best-remembered words did not originate with him. Similar expressions date very far back. (Excerpted from my essay for the Hillsdale College Churchill Project. To read the full article, click here.)

Quotations scholar Ralph Keyes writes:

Cicero and Livy wrote of “sweat and blood.” A 1611 John Donne poem included the lines “That ‘tis in vaine to dew, or mollifie / It with thy Teares, or Sweat, or Bloud.” More than two centuries later, Byron wrote, “Year after year they voted cent per cent / Blood, sweat, and tear-wrung millions—why?—for…