The Literary Churchill

I’ve been slogging through the William Manchester Churchill trilogy, The Last Lion. How is Hillsdale’s eight-volume Winston S. Churchill by Randolph Churchill and Martin Gilbert different?

At Bradford, Yorkshire on 14 March 1912, Churchill made a contentious speech defending Irish Home Rule. Defying his Unionist opponents, he concluded: “If the Government and the Parliament of this great country and greater Empire is to be exposed to menace and brutality [for any] sinister and revolutionary purpose—then, gentlemen, I can only say to you let us go forward together and put these grave matters to the proof.”

Churchill’s bibliographer, Ronald Cohen, surveys Churchill’s output for his best-seller titles. The answer, we learn, is not so surprising.

In his book Churchill's Literary Allusions, Darrell Holley writes: "There is no English author whom Churchill alludes to as often as to William Shakespeare. Both by formal quotations, some quite lengthy, and by well-known phrases almost hidden in his text, Churchill makes allusion to many of Shakespeare's plays."

Churchill's "The Story of the Malakand Field Force" was reprinted in 1989 for the first time since 1915. This and later editions offer a reasonably faithful text for modern readers.

In Thoughts Upon Hunting, Sir Peter Beckford wrote: “A gentleman seeing a girl skinning eels alive asked her, ‘if it was not very cruel?’—‘O not at all, sir,’ replied the girl, ‘they be used to it.’”

Churchill had an affinity for a good phrase, and stored them in his capacious memory for deployment when the time was right. He occasionally used them without credit to the author, innocently assuming that anyone with an ounce of education would recognize them on sight.

None of the leading Churchill misquotes seems to be famous in German. In our language, the best known one is the supposed quip when Churchill was asked for his recipe for a long life: “First of all: no sports!” Another attributed to Churchill is “I believe only such statistics that I have forged myself.”

How many words did Sir Winston Churchill write?

A reader has written to ask if Alfred, Lord Tennyson was Churchill’s favorite poet. We don’t know if Tennyson headed Churchill’s list, but he certainly ranked high.