At its core, the Churchill Collection evinces the prolific career of Winston Churchill as an author and an astute 20th century war historian. The collection features many books written by Churchill, who won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1953.
Churchill was a noted historian, starting from his early years as a war correspondent and spanning his many years in office during the course of many of the key world events of the 20th century. In his lifetime Churchill penned 58 books, 260 pamphlets, 840 articles and 9,000 pages of speeches. The Graham Library’s Churchill Collection contains excellent examples of many of these works as well as many varying editions and printings of the same text- an invaluable resource for textual scholars.
Some highlights include:
The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan (London, 1899)
Churchill A2.1.a
The beautiful two-volume first edition of The River War was abridged for the second edition (1902), notably by excising attacks on Kitchener (as well as folding maps and other detailed material) [Churchill A2.2]. Now a member of Parliament, Churchill writes in the new preface, “what has been jettisoned consists mainly of personal impressions and opinions, often controversial in character, which, however just, were not essential.” This is a vivid example of the importance of having variant editions of a published work. Most later editions have been based on this abridgement.
My African Journey (London, 1908)
Churchill A27.1
First published in shorter form in Strand Magazine, this work of the then-Undersecretary of State for the Colonies shows Churchill’s awareness of issues related to the welfare of East Africa that remain unresolved today. The early editions contain photographs said to have been taken by Churchill himself, the only instance of such in the canon. The Canadian edition [Churchill A27.7] has a pictorial cover, in contrast to the scarcer, plain-bound U.S. edition. The 1910 trade edition in colour wrappers is rare today [Churchill A27.8].
My Early Life (London, 1930)
Churchill A91.3.a
Written at a time when some thought Churchill’s political career was finished, this autobiographical work was deemed one of his finer literary achievements. The book shows him not just as a historian and a war chronicler, but able to reflect on his own life and to present it as a narrative for all audiences. It was one of two works excerpted for the Nobel Library when Churchill won the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Great Contemporaries (London, 1937)
Churchill A105.1.a
To the twenty-one profiles of the first edition, Churchill added four additional ones for the 1938 revised edition, including, notably, that of Franklin Roosevelt [Churchill A105.3.a]. Subsequent editions of this work show strategic revisions, such as removal of the sketches of Trotsky, Savinkov and Roosevelt in the 1942 Macmillan edition, which also added the date “1935” to the title of the sketch “Hitler and His Choice.” [Churchill A105.8.a].
War Speeches
Churchill A130 PAM; Churchill A135 PAM; Churchill A154 PAM
Many important collected editions of Churchill’s speeches have been published, with significant variations among them that were mainly the author’s own editorial revisions. The Graham Library’s Churchill collection includes a large number of these volumes. Of exceptional interest among the Library’s acquisitions from the Watt collection are the dozens of separately published speeches delivered at home and abroad throughout Churchill’s career, but particularly during the course of World War II. The mode of publication ranges from newspaper “offprints” to private press mementos. Of interest are two special editions of Churchill’s famous speech to the U.S. Congress on 26 December 1941: one produced by the Overbrook Press in Stamford, Connecticut, another issued in England with a preface calling it, “a speech which may well go down in history as THE speech in a thousand years.” The Daily Telegraph edition of this speech pairs it with the well-known address to the Canadian Parliament a few days later in which Churchill’s observation in response to the French claim that, “in three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken”, provokes loud laughter and prolonged cheers: “Some chicken! Some neck!”
Their Finest Hour: Speeches, Broadcasts and Messages (1940)
Churchill A136.1.c PAM
Twenty-one Churchill speeches were published in both joint and individual issues by newspapers in Winnipeg, Regina, and Saskatoon, “for the strength and inspiration which they provide.” Although the cover identifies our copy as no. 1, copyright difficulties in both Canada and Britain prevented publication of further volumes in the series.