CHURCHILL, Winston S.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Autograph letter signed, to the Earl of Rosebery, concerning his filial biography and political activities. A warm unpublished letter to Rosebery, Prime Minister from 1894 to 1895, whom Churchill admired as both friend and mentor and who served as an important source for Churchill's biography of his father, the Conservative statesman Lord Randolph Churchill.Churchill opened his Great Contemporaries (1937) with a chapter on Rosebery, writing, "Lord Rosebery was probably my father's greatest friend... I inherited this friendship... The biography of my father by which I was soon absorbed opened a wide and fertile field of common interest. He assisted actively in the enterprise... This formed a theme of common interest between us and built a bridge across the gulf of a different generation. During the years of my literary task, from 1900 to 1905, I was often his guest in all his houses" (pp. 14-15).Rosebery had sent Churchill a letter: "I found the enclosed at Durdans [Rosebery's home] yesterday. Read & return. I have no notion what it refers to" (in Churchill Archives, CHAR 2/22/75). Churchill replies here, "The letter is in answer to an amusing protest by you against my father's referring to your 'vast wealth'. I will find it in a few days. It will make you laugh. Indeed I have half a thought of persuading you to let me publish it". Churchill's biography was published in 1906. Rosebery published his own biography later that year, noting in the preface that it was a personal ske

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