The World Crisis Breeds New Publishing Relationships For Churchill
Finest Hour|Fall 2018
This is a behind-the-scenes article. It focuses not on the content of The World Crisis (which former Prime Minister A. J. Balfour described as “Winston’s brilliant Autobiography, disguised as a history of the universe”) but rather on how that multi-volume history of the Great War—Churchill’s twelfth work—came to be published in both the UK and the USA.
Ronald I. Cohen
The World Crisis Breeds New Publishing Relationships For Churchill

As an established author, Winston Churchill had had a number of publishing relationships on both sides of the Atlantic, some of which were more enduring than others. His first was with Longmans Green, which had published his first five books (from the The Story of the Malakand Field Force to Ian Hamilton’s March) in both London and New York between 1898 and 1900. Then, after a brief fling with Macmillan (which had overpaid for the rights to Lord Randolph Churchill), Churchill moved to Hodder & Stoughton in London between 1908 and 1910 for the publication of My African Journey and the speech volumes Liberalism and the Social Problem and the now exceedingly rare The People’s Rights.

There followed a publication famine from Churchill’s appointment as First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911 through the end of the decade. Consequently, when Churchill determined to write a history of the First World War, he had no obvious publishing firm to approach. He was very much a free agent.

Mr. Thornton Butterworth

By chance, on 22 October 1920, the Associated Newspapers asked Churchill to review the new Autobiography of Margot Asquith for the munificent sum of £250 (the rough equivalent of which today would be $12,200). The article appeared on 4 November, and Asquith’s grateful publisher Thornton Butterworth wrote Churchill five days later, saying:

I have been deeply gratified by your most recent admirable review in “The Daily Mail.” I was greatly impressed by the tactful kindness of such criticism as had to be adverse and entire fairmindedness shown to the book throughout….May I add that if at any time you decide to write a new book, I should esteem it a very great favour if you would allow me the privilege of publishing it.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة Fall 2018 من Finest Hour.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة Fall 2018 من Finest Hour.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

المزيد من القصص من FINEST HOUR مشاهدة الكل
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Finest Hour

Perfect Preparation: What Churchill Learned from the First World War

Winston Churchill famously wrote about his feelings on becoming prime minister in May 1940, “I felt as if I were walking with Destiny and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.”1 It was true, and no part of his life had been a better preparation than 1914–18.

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War Lord in Training: Churchill And The Royal Navy During The First World War
Finest Hour

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time-read
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The World Crisis Breeds New Publishing Relationships For Churchill
Finest Hour

The World Crisis Breeds New Publishing Relationships For Churchill

This is a behind-the-scenes article. It focuses not on the content of The World Crisis (which former Prime Minister A. J. Balfour described as “Winston’s brilliant Autobiography, disguised as a history of the universe”) but rather on how that multi-volume history of the Great War—Churchill’s twelfth work—came to be published in both the UK and the USA.

time-read
9 mins  |
Fall 2018
The Mistaken View of Churchill's First World War “Mistakes”
Finest Hour

The Mistaken View of Churchill's First World War “Mistakes”

A common verdict on Churchill’s First World War is that he was the perpetrator of costly disasters, but that he learned from his mistakes. Consider this, from the Imperial War Museum’s website:

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10+ mins  |
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THE FULTON REPORT From the National Churchill Museum
Finest Hour

THE FULTON REPORT From the National Churchill Museum

High Hopes and Unbounded Confidence? The Aftermath of the Great Wars

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3 mins  |
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November 11, 1918: The Hour of Deliverance
Finest Hour

November 11, 1918: The Hour of Deliverance

In his memoirs of the First World War published as The World Crisis, Winston Churchill vividly recalls the scene he witnessed at the moment the Armistice took effect.

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Finest Hour

Churchill's World Crisis

Today, whenever major political leaders come to the end of their careers, we have learned to expect an announcement at no distant point that a contract has been signed for the publication of their memoirs, with large advances mentioned.

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Churchill's New Audience | # Armistice100
Finest Hour

Churchill's New Audience | # Armistice100

For the past four years, the centenary of the Great War, I have been managing social media content for the National World War I Museum of the United States in Kansas City, Missouri.

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Action This Day
Finest Hour

Action This Day

125 Years ago Autumn 1893 • Age 19 “Sandhurst Has Done Wonders for Him”

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Finest Hour

The International Churchill Society's First Fifty Years

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