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Details
CHURCHILL, Sir Winston Spencer (1874-1965). Autograph letter signed ('W') to Pamela, Countess of Lytton, Eichhorn, bei Brünn, Mähren, Austria, 3 October 1906.
6½ pages, 177 x 112mm. Envelope. Provenance: Pamela, Countess of Lytton; and by descent.
The carefree young Churchill on a European tour. Churchill's summer has encompassed Trouville ('with polo & baccarat'), the Alps and southern Germany, Venice ('a rabbit warren on top of a water labyrinth'), then a motor tour across Italy, and finally 'Eichhorn & partridges'. Venice in particular pleased him, though it was a little dull: but he enjoyed historical speculations on the 'splendid figures that in majestic succession preserved for this square mile of swamp and sand-bank 1000 years of independent sovereignty & a record of immortal fame'. He has been immersed in French literature. Lord Rosebery's new memoir of Churchill's father has just appeared – 'What an odd man Rosebery is! Not one word to me'; but it will be good for sales of Churchill's own biography. After his long holiday 'It seems quite queer coming back to politics, but the outlook is prosperous. The letter ends on a fond note: 'I often think of you & dwell with comfort & joy upon the profound associations of sympathy & friendship which unite us'.
Churchill had defected from the Conservative to the Liberal party on 31 May 1904, and was appointed under-secretary at the Colonial Office in the new government of Henry Campbell-Bannerman in December 1905, his first ministerial office. Churchill's biography of his father, the Victorian politician Lord Randolph Churchill, was published in January 1906 to a favourable critical reception, although it was reviewed by Theodore Roosevelt, who had known the subject, as 'a clever, tactful and rather cheap and vulgar life of that clever, tactful and rather cheap and vulgar egotist'.
6½ pages, 177 x 112mm. Envelope. Provenance: Pamela, Countess of Lytton; and by descent.
The carefree young Churchill on a European tour. Churchill's summer has encompassed Trouville ('with polo & baccarat'), the Alps and southern Germany, Venice ('a rabbit warren on top of a water labyrinth'), then a motor tour across Italy, and finally 'Eichhorn & partridges'. Venice in particular pleased him, though it was a little dull: but he enjoyed historical speculations on the 'splendid figures that in majestic succession preserved for this square mile of swamp and sand-bank 1000 years of independent sovereignty & a record of immortal fame'. He has been immersed in French literature. Lord Rosebery's new memoir of Churchill's father has just appeared – 'What an odd man Rosebery is! Not one word to me'; but it will be good for sales of Churchill's own biography. After his long holiday 'It seems quite queer coming back to politics, but the outlook is prosperous. The letter ends on a fond note: 'I often think of you & dwell with comfort & joy upon the profound associations of sympathy & friendship which unite us'.
Churchill had defected from the Conservative to the Liberal party on 31 May 1904, and was appointed under-secretary at the Colonial Office in the new government of Henry Campbell-Bannerman in December 1905, his first ministerial office. Churchill's biography of his father, the Victorian politician Lord Randolph Churchill, was published in January 1906 to a favourable critical reception, although it was reviewed by Theodore Roosevelt, who had known the subject, as 'a clever, tactful and rather cheap and vulgar life of that clever, tactful and rather cheap and vulgar egotist'.
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