My Darling Winston

David Lough

• Publisher: Pegasus Books
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781681778822
• eBook ISBN: 9781681779485
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Biographies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

My Darling Winston is an edited collection of the personal letters between Winston Churchill and his mother, Jenny Jerome, between 1881—when Churchill was just six—and 1921, the year of Jenny's death. Many of these intimate letters— between two gifted writers—are published here for the first time, and the exchange of letters between mother and son has never before been published as a correspondence. A significant addition to the Churchill canon, My Darling Winston traces Churchill's emotional, intellectual, and political development as confided to his primary mentor, his mother. As well as providing a basic narrative of Jenny's and Winston Churchill's lives over a forty-year period, My Darling Winston tells the story of a changing mother-son relationship, characterised at the outset by Churchill's emotional and practical dependence on his mother, but which is dramatically reversed as her life begins to disintegrate tragically towards its end.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Editorial Notes
• 1. His Mother’s Son 1881–90: ‘Mice are not caught without cheese’
• 2. Trials with a Teenager 1890–92: ‘Too busy with your parties’
• 3. Coping with a Cadet 1892–4: ‘What a goose you are – write!’
• 4. Dying by Inches 1894: ‘I feel too low to write’
• 5. Single Parent 1895–6: ‘You really ought to leave no stone unturned’
• 6. A Long Way Apart 1896: ‘This godless land of snobs and bores’
• 7. Egypt or India? 1896–7: ‘All my political ambitions shall be centred in you’
• 8. Army or Politics? 1897: ‘I am a Liberal in all but name’
• 9. A Splendid Episode 1897: ‘I play for high stakes’
• 10. Hobson’s Choice 1897–8: ‘My pen wanders recklessly’
• 11. Both Stone Broke 1898: ‘Relax not a volt of your energy’
• 12. Lances and Pistols on the Nile 1898: ‘It passed like a dream’
• 13. Final Passage to India 1898–9: ‘Patriotism and art mix as little as oil and water’
• 14. The Sinews of War 1899–1900: ‘I understand you as no other woman ever will’
• 15. End of an Era 1900–01: ‘Are all Mothers the same?’
• 16. Both Hunted 1901–2: ‘Naturally we see little of each other’
• 17. The Pig Goes to Market 1903–5: ‘I cannot help admiring Chamberlain’s courage’
• 18. Turning the Tables 1905–6: ‘You evidently forgot you were writing to your Mother’
• 19. Solace in Scribblings 1907–8: ‘Le Bon Dieu has work for you yet’
• 20. End of a Marriage 1908–14: ‘Of what use to chain him to me?’
• 21. Coda at the Front 1915–18: ‘I am a great believer in your star’
• 22. Last Words 1920–21: ‘You are tired out and a little disheartened’
• Appendix – People, Places
• Acknowledgements
• Image Permissions
• Sources and Letter References
• Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright