CHURCHILL, Winston S. - PRITCHETT, V. S.

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Two autograph manuscripts signed by V. S. Pritchett on Winston Churchill. Extensively corrected manuscripts by one of the leading literary critics of the time, comprising Pritchett's article on Churchill's funeral and his review of Randolph Churchill's biography, each published in the New Statesman and Nation. Pritchett frequently strikes through passages and reworks the text of the manuscripts, each comprising around 2,000 words.Pritchett has signed the funeral article at the head and noted in the inner margin, "Appeared in NSN. Harold Wilson's wife wrote congratulating me on this account of the funeral. V. S. Pritchett.". In his biography of Pritchett, Treglown writes "the funeral article is a powerful piece of writing which embodies its own claim that 'state occasions are London's poetry'. It also interweaves a meditation on lost national greatness with some half-concealed personal notes... Pritchett intimately conveys what it was like to be there on that winter's day ('it was important to put on two pairs of socks'), and assesses Churchill's place in history without allowing his readers to forget that notions of uniqueness and irreplaceability can be exaggerated" (Treglown, p. 226).The review article is similarly signed at the head and also has the note about Wilson's wife, mistakenly written on this piece and crossed out. The first volume of Randolph Churchill's biography of his father was published in 1966. In his review, Pritchett recognizes Randolph's unique position

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