Jennie, Lady Randolph Churchill: A portrait with letters - Hardcover

Peregrine Churchill; Julian Mitchell

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002113937 ISBN 13: 9780002113939

Publisher: Collins, 1974

Synopsis

Jennie, Lady Randolph Churchill, is best remembered today as the American mother of a legendary Englishman: Sir Winston Churchill. But in her lifetime she was a legend in her own right. When she and Randolph first met in 1873 she was nineteen, the beautiful, high-spirited daughter of flamboyant American speculator, Leonard Jerome. Randolph was twenty-four, younger son of one of England's greatest dukedoms. Only three days after their shipboard meeting, Randolph proposed and Jennie accepted to the shock and hostility of their parents. But after a long battle they triumphed and embarked on a marriage which produced much joy, yet also misery. There followed Randolph's meteoric rise in politics, his still more rapid fall and early death. But Jennie was soon in love again, this time with George Cornwallis West, 'the handsomest man in England', a Guards officer twenty years her junior. Society was outraged, and even the Prince of Wales stepped in to try to prevent their marriage. When George went to the South African War, Jennie followed in the hospital ship Maine, and in the end they had their way. Yet society proved right, the marriage did not last. George eloped with the actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Jennie returned to a turbulent widowhood. In the end she found a sort of peace in a third, more demanding marriage. The author is Jennie's grandson, and Julian Mitchell wrote the scripts for the TV series of the same name as the book.

About this edition

• Publisher: Collins
• Publication date: 1974
• ISBN 10: 0002113937
• ISBN 13: 9780002113939
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 285