CHURCHILL, Winston S.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Working papers for A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. A significant archive of material from the composition of Churchill's classic A History of the English Speaking Peoples, including a galley proof chapter of "The United States" initialled by Churchill.The archive was preserved by Denis Kelly (1937-1992), a key player in Churchill's large team of historians and assistants with whom he produced the work. Kelly was a barrister by training and first met Churchill in 1947 when he was chosen to catalogue Churchill's papers. Waving his arm at the tottering piles, Churchill told Kelly "your task, my boy, is to make Cosmos out of Chaos" (cited in Gilbert, p. 331). This archive shows he had much the same role in the writing of the History.Most of the material relates to the third and fourth volumes of the History (including chapters on the American Revolution, Peninsular War, Napoleon, the Indian Empire, and the Seven Years War). It chiefly comprises typescript précis of the works of other historians to be used as source material, and galley proofs of the drafted text for further revisions. For the latter, typescript drafts were sent to the printer, set in type and returned as galley proofs, which were then revised by Churchill and his team and sent back. New galley proofs then came back, and the process continued until finalized. The archive contains hundreds of pages of such galley proofs, indicative of the extent of revision - marked "first revise", "second revise", "thir

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