Letters for the Ages Winston Churchill

Abstract

Here are some of the best of Churchill’s letters, many of a more personal and intimate nature, presented in chronological order, with a preface to each letter explaining the context. The recipients include a vast range of people, including his schoolmaster, his American grandmother and former President Eisenhower. They are taken from within the Churchill Archive in Cambridge, where there is a mass of Churchill’s correspondence. Several of the letters included have never appeared in book form before. Winston Churchill has become an iconic figure greatly loved the world over, but maybe especially these days in the USA. Churchill understood the power of words and he used his writing to sustain and complement his political career, publishing over 40 books and receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953. This volume concentrates on his more intimate words. It seeks to show the private man behind the public figure and introduce fresh light on Churchill’s character and personality by capturing the drama, immediacy, storms, depressions, passions and challenges of Churchill’s extraordinary career. Churchill was neither a god nor a demon. Through these letters we see him as a human being with human emotions, frailties and a large ego. He was not always right. He held strong opinions and was often provocative. These letters take us into his world and allow us to follow the changes in his motivations and beliefs as he navigates his 90 years. There are intimate letters to his parents, his teacher at Harrow, Louis de Souza (Boer Secretary of State for War), his wife Clementine, Prime Minister Asquith, Lord Northcliffe, Anthony Eden, President Roosevelt, Eamon De Valera, the French Socialist Prime Minister Léon Blum and Charles De Gaulle. These are letters of a personal nature and are most illuminating. They are enhanced by facsimiles of the letters and images which appear throughout the book, helping the reader to envisage a sense of Churchill in his most private moments.