Winston S. Churchill: Youth 1874-1900 by Randolph S. Churchill lands on the |> SALE <| shelves in my shop.
Heinemann, 1966, Hardback in dust wrapper.
Illustrated by way of: Black & White Photographs; Genealogical Tables [2 Fold-Out];
From the cover: In this definitive biography of his father, Mr. Randolph Churchill has the exclusive use of Sir Winstons letters and papers. The form in which the work, consisting of five volumes, is cast is summed up in the phrase that Randolph Churchill quotes from Lockhart: He shall be his own biographer.
The author presents Churchill, as far as possible, through his own words. At no time does Randolph Churchill make a statement which has not been thoroughly and satisfactorily authenticated. The result is a taut and vivid account of which the life blood is immediacy. Randolph Churchills method produces a biography which is the very opposite of those flabby portraits embedded in verbose speculation and irrelevant detail.
The first volume covers the years from Churchills birth to his return to England from an American lecture tour on the day of Queen Victorias funeral in order to embark on his political career. In the opening pages, the account of his birth is presented through letters of his family. Winston comes on the scene with his own words in a letter to his mother, written when he was seven. His later letters, as a child, as a boy at Harrow, as a cadet at Sandhurst, and above all as a subaltern in India, show the development of his mind and character, his ambition and awakening interests, which were to merge into a genius of our age. Mr. Churchill presents facts relevant to the subject and personalities discussed and fills in the historical background of the last twenty-six years of the nineteenth century. Here is all the excitement of the beginning of an extraordinary career and the forging of a remarkable personality.
It should not be thought that Churchills early life was unclouded, nor that his rise to fame was free from setbacks. His father, Lord Randolph, had been elected to Parliament in 1874 and his political duties and his beautiful American wifes energetic social life, left them little time to devote to their son.
There are many touching letters from the boy begging, but with great dignity, for his parents to take more interest in him. Lord Randolphs rise was rapid but so was his decline and before Winston was twenty-one he had died. At school Winstons progress was anything but meteoric. But the letters, and Randolph Churchills commentary on that period belie the legend that Winston was a lazy boy. He was not. He saw, at a very early age, through much of the arid uselessness of conventional schooling and he stubbornly confined his interests to the subjects which attracted him and which he considered useful. He failed twice to gain admission to Sandhurst and his father plainly showed him his bitter disappointment at his sons failures.
Churchill in the South African War as a soldier, a journalist making his spectacular escape from a Boer prison, reveals all the energy and tenacity which accompanied his natural but often unconventional dash. By the end of this first volume he knew what he intended to do and there is an air of expectancy and inevitability about his first entry into political life when the Queen died and both the nineteenth century and his own adventurous youth were to give way to a career of continuing audacity.
Very Good in Good+ Dust Wrapper. A little rubbing to the edges of the dust wrapper. Single reading crease to the spine. Tape offset to the blanks. Text complete, clean and tight otherwise.
Red boards with Gilt titling to the Spine. [XXXVI] 608 pages. Index. 9½” x 6¼”.
This book will be eventually reach my delightful website…(added to my Biography category.) but get 60% off buying from this very blog blog… Buy it now for just £2.60 + P&P! Of course, if you don’t like this one there are plenty more available here!
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