News From the Front

CHARTWELL BOOKSELLERS’ 39TH BIRTHDAY PAINTING

We have decided to commemorate our 39th (“Jack Benny”) Birthday with a diverting keepsake — a limited, original Winston Churchill paint-by-numbers portrait. Partial proceeds will be donated to the Ukrainian Safety Fund of the International & European Federations of Journalists .

HAPPY 39TH BIRTHDAY CHARTWELL BOOKSELLERS!

Thirty-nine years ago, on April 11, 1983, Chartwell Booksellers opened for business, in the arcade of the Park Avenue Plaza building here in NYC.

We have reached our “Jack Benny Birthday.”

DUNKIRK HERE AND NOW

 “We will not give up, and we will not lose. We will fight till the end — at sea, in the air, we will continue fighting for our land whatever the cost. We will fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the streets.”
-President Volodymyr Zelensky

CHURCHILL’S IDES OF MARCH

On March 5, 1946, at the invitation of President Harry Truman, Winston Churchill delivered an address at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, that introduced the world to the chilling phrase: “Iron Curtain.” The horror of the ongoing Soviet assault in the Ukraine reinvokes its resonance.

CHURCHILL IN FEBRUARY

Winston Churchill’s “Wilderness Years” began with his exit as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1929 and ended with his return as First Lord of the Admiralty confronting impending war in 1939. Two rarities that we very recently acquired bracket this extraordinary period and both happen to have February connections. As we traverse February, the shortest, yet ever-seemingly endless month, we thought we would share them with you.

CHURCHILL’S PASSING

For our 39th time (which seems in itself a Churchillian feat of longevity), we commemorate with you the anniversary of Winston Churchill’s passing on January 24, 1965. Churchill died at home in London at 28 Hyde Park Gate on a Sunday morning, shortly after eight o’clock, at the age of 90. Extraordinarily, it was exactly seventy years to the day of his father’s death.

WORDS FROM WINSTON CHURCHILL TO ILLUMINATE OUR DARKEST HOUR

We wanted to reach out on this solemn day commemorating one of the darkest hours in our country’s history, the assault on our nation’s Capitol one year ago today, with the words of Winston Churchill, who revered America’s Congress second only to Great Britain’s Parliament, and cherished America’s Constitution (though he did believe Britain’s Magna Carta was just a bit better).

OUR HOLIDAY MESSAGE, FROM WINSTON CHURCHILL

Washington, D.C., December 24, 1941.
“This is a strange Christmas Eve.  Almost the whole world is locked in deadly struggle…”

The resonances of Winston Churchill’s Christmas Eve words delivered on his first wartime visit to America are today inescapable. We share them with hope and even joy.

HOLIDAY TREATS FROM SIR JOHN COLVILLE

That Winston Churchill’s personal and private secretaries occasionally salvaged items discarded by “The Old Man” to keep as mementoes, has long been known in Churchill circles. But Sir John Colville himself, Churchill’s wartime private secretary?

How delightful.

HAPPY 147TH BIRTHDAY, WINSTON CHURCHILL!

November 30 was Winston Churchill’s 147th Birthday. Celebrate with us by exploring our new catalogue. 

As per tradition.

“THE LAST KING OF AMERICA” by Andrew Roberts

Andrew Roberts, author of one of the finest Churchill biographies (and one of the finest Napoleon biographies) yet written, has a new book out that is, by all accounts, one of the finest biographies of King George III yet written. For a limited time, we are accepting advance orders for signed copies.

“CHURCHILL’S SHADOW:” REALLY?!

This week we begin selling CHURCHILL’S SHADOW by Geoffrey Wheatcroft, who has long pursued a career as a contrarian Churchill critic. His new 600-plus-page tome is a summation of all the negativity that he has mustered as a lifelong revisionist re-assessor of Winston Churchill. We invite you to read it and see what you think.