THE DREAM & THE CHARTWELL BULLETINS
[1987-1989]
(Cohen A288/291) (Woods A147/148)
The Dream
[1987]
(Cohen A288) (Woods A147)
Churchill wrote The Dream just after World War II, entitling it “Private Article” and filing it away. In his will, Sir Winston bequeathed the piece to Lady Churchill; it was finally published in The Daily Telegraph (1966) and the Collected Essays (1976). Lady Churchill assigned the rights to the work as a donation to Churchill College Cambridge, by whose kind permission it was published for the first time in single volume form by the International Churchill Society twenty-two years after Sir Winston’s death. Though of modest size, it has an important place among his writings.
The story is of the imagined return of Lord Randolph Churchill, “just as I had seen him in his prime,” finding his son painting in the Chartwell studio. In typical prose Winston recounts all that has happened since his father’s death in 1895, without once hinting at the myriad roles Winston himself played in those events. Winston’s son Randolph believed that “the story may have been inspired subconsciously by Churchill’s regret that his father would never know what he had achieved. It is part of the artistry of this tale that the inquisitive young father of 37 is not allowed to know the one thing about his 72-year-old son that would have amazed him more than anything else which he had he learned ”
There are many other ironies. Lord Randolph if Russia is “still the danger” and enquiries, “Is there still a Tsar?” Winston replies, “Yes, but he is not a Romanoff.” India, Winston admits, “has gone down the drain,” but the remaining Dominions “are our brothers.” Lord Randolph asks if there has been war. Winston replies, “We have had nothing else but wars since democracy took charge.” But our author remains optimistic: “Having gone through so much, we do not despair…we are trying to make a world organisation in which we and America will be very important.”
Lord Randolph compliments his son on his grasp of “these fearful facts….I never expected that you would develop so far and so fully. Of course you are too old now to think about such things, but when I hear you talk I really wonder you didn’t go into politics. You might have done a lot to help. You might even have made a name for yourself.” With that he lights his cigarette, and vanishes.
The attraction of this work is manifest, but one question about it remains. Just how much of it was fiction?
Sir Winston was a man of transcendental, almost supernatural powers. In 1953 he told his private secretary, Jock Colville, that he would die on 24 January, the same day as his father died; twelve years later he lapsed into a coma on 10 January, and Colville was able to assure The Queen’s private secretary, that he wouldn’t die for a fortnight. Unconscious, Churchill did just that.
-Richard M. Langworth
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Editions
First Edition
Cohen A288.1 / ICS A147a
Publisher: Churchill Literary Foundation, Hopkinton, N.H. 1987
Bound in padded red leather, 16mo, blocked gilt with Churchill Arms blocked blind on top board. All edges gilt, head- and footbands, satin page-marker. 16mo, 48 pages numbered (i)-xvi (+2) and 1-(28) (+2), with color illustration running over two coated paper sheets inserted after page xvi. A limited edition of 500 individually numbered copies: copies #1-20 (plus one proof copy) carried handmade French marbled endpapers and copies #21-500 (plus ten proof copies) carried red moire cloth endpapers. Not sold commercially but presented to supporters of the Churchill Literary Foundation (predecessor to The Churchill Center) through donations of $100, £65 or $135 Canadian. Published September 1987.
This extraordinary production was printed by traditional letterpress on 300-year Mohawk Superfine archival paper and bound in padded leather, with many symbolic features. The top board is blocked gilt with Churchill’s signature taken from the First Edition of the one-volume abridged World Crisis, bordered by a design based on the title page of David Kirkwood’s My Life of Revolt (1935), which contains a Churchill introduction and was published by Harrap, publishers of Marlborough. French handmade endpapers on copies #1-20 were chosen to denote Churchill’s special affection for France; such copies were presented to President Mitterrand, the Pol-Roger family, and the Duff Cooper Library at the British Embassy in Paris, as well as to HM The Queen (copy #1), President Reagan (#2) and Lady Soames (the proof copy). The color illustration is from an oil painting by Sal Asaro commissioned by the publishers, the original of which was purchased from the artist by Harvey Greisman of Connecticut, USA.
Appraisal
The edition was fully subscribed by mid-1988, and the only copies that have come on the secondhand market have appeared through sales of estates and collections, selling for remarkably high prices.
Second Edition
Cohen A288.2 / ICS A147b
Publisher: International Churchill Society, Hopkinton, N.H. 1994
Bound in maroon textured heavy paper wrappers blocked gilt with title, Churchill Arms and author’s name on top wrapper. 16mo, 32 pages numbered (1)-32; pages (15)-(18) are coated paper contain the Asaro painting running as a double page spread on pages (16)-(17). Published June 1994 in an edition of 1000 copies.
Variant
Seventy copies of this edition, plus ten proof copies, were specially bound in dark green leather boards for the Churchill Family, to celebrate the 120th anniversary of Sir Winston’s birth at the Pinafore Room, Savoy Hotel, London on 30 November 1994. These copies are blocked gilt with the title, Churchill Arms and author’s name on top board and the title and author’s name (running down) on the spine. They feature light green marbled endpapers and gilt page edges. An extra sheet comprising two leafs and four pages is inserted to fall before the title page and page 32, the first page of which states “COMMEMORATIVE EDITION,” a note about the occasion for which it was produced, and the number (#1-70) or “proof copy.”
Third Edition
Cohen A288.4 / ICS A147c
Publisher: Levenger, Inc., Delray Beach, Florida, 2005.
Bound in grey bonded leather with a Sarah Churchill intaglio print tipped onto the front cover, this handsome recent edition contains contributions on the work by Sir Winston’s grandson Winston S. Churchill and Richard M. Langworth. As long as it remains in print, it will be an inexpensive way to acquire a fine limited edition; prices will start going up when Levenger’s supply is exhausted.
Foreign Translations
Latvian: SAPNIS
Publisher: International Churchill Society, Hopkinton, N.H. 1995
Bound in bright red morocco with Churchill Arms, “SAPNIS” and author’s name on top board and “SAPNIS” and author’s name (reading down) on spine. 16mo, 44 pages numbered (4+) (1)-37 (+3); plus four unnumbered coated paper pages containing the Asaro painting as a double page spread.
The first Churchill book published in Latvian, this work consists of the original text plus 22 explanatory notes to Latvians unfamiliar with British terminology or place names. The translation was prepared by the British Embassy in Riga, reproduced by the publisher in New Hampshire, and bound by Robert Hartnoll Ltd. in Cornwall, England. This limited edition of twenty-five numbered copies was published in May 1995.
Sapnis was produced for Richard Ralph, Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Latvia, who had asked this writer for an appropriate gift for the Latvian President, an admirer of Sir Winston. The presentation was made during “Latviesu Krasts,” a commemorative bicycle tour of the Latvian coast in May 1995, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the continuing struggle of Latvian patriots for freedom after the end of World War II. Copy #1 was retained by the publisher; copy #2 was presented in Jurmala, Latvia on 18 June 1995 to President Guntis Ulmanis by Ambassador Ralph and the bicyclists: Talevaldis Dumpis, Maxim Vickers, Douglas Russell and this writer. Other copies were presented to Latvian dignitaries and Churchill Society Trustees and special friends.
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THE CHARTWELL BULLETINS, January – June 1935
[1989]
(Cohen A291) (ICS A148)
When his wife was away from home, Churchill often kept her up to date with what he called “Chartwell Bulletins.” Between January and April 1935, Clementine undertook a voyage to the South Seas, and Winston sent her twelve charming bulletins which tell a remarkable and cohesive tale about life at Chartwell and contemporary politics. The twelve are collected here, along with exchanges of telegrams during the period and photographs, some annotated in Churchill’s s own hand, by courtesy of Lady Soames. The letters had previously been published only in the thick and now-rare Companion Volume to Volume V of the official biography. The editor was official biographer Sir Martin Gilbert, who reviewed, amended and amplified his original footnotes to bring them up to date, and to identify every person mentioned.
The dialogue is captivating. Here we meet daughter Mary’s pug, committing “at least three indiscretions a day” on Winston’s carpet; Churchill wishing he’d been in Commons to defend a political foe, Ramsay MacDonald, from “brutal insults”; son Randolph growing “a hideous, scrubby beard”; an island in Chartwell’s lake being made by a steam shovel always referred to as a living being; the current book project stalled by politics (“Poor Marlborough lingers on the battlefield of Ramillies [until we are] quit of the India Bill.”) Winston’s irrepressible humor bubbles throughout: “All the black swans are mating, not only the father and mother, but both brothers and both sisters….The Ptolemys always did this and Cleopatra was the result….I have not thought it my duty to interfere.” Alongside the merriment we read of Churchill’s forebodings over Germany: “I expect in fact [that Hitler] is really much stronger than we are.”
Many writers have tried to relate what life at Chartwell was really like in its prime as Churchill’s “factory.” Some, like William Manchester, have succeeded, while others have only created caricature. In The Chartwell Bulletins we are given a true glimpse—by the man who knew Chartwell best.
-Richard M. Langworth
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Editions
First Edition
Cohen A291 / ICS A148
Publisher: International Churchill Society, Hopkinton, N.H. 1989
Perfect-bound (square spine) in maroon textured heavy paper wrappers. Title, Churchill Arms and author’s, editor’s and publisher’s names blocked gilt on top wrapper. 16mo, 64 pages numbered (1)-64, illustrated. Published June 1989 at $15 in an edition of 2000 copies.
Variant
Fifty copies were bound in red leather boards blocked gilt.
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Click here for a list of terminology, bibliographic information, and other notes.