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Darling Winston, Dearest Mamma
David Lough

Darling Winston, Dearest Mamma

Winston Churchill’s American mother, born Jennie Jerome, brought him up almost single-handed. Over forty years they exchanged at least 1,000 letters. These reveal Jennie not just a mother - but as her son’s life coach, career consultant, literary agent, political adviser, publicist, critic, estate agent and partner in financial distress.

Both mother and son are wonderful writers. Their letters are frank, yet reveal how dependent on his mother Churchill remained - practically and emotionally – until he was thirty years old. Then the wheel turns. Her charms fade and her life crumbles. She needs him more than he needs her – until he goes to fight on the Western Front.

Many of the letters have never before seen the light of day; as a correspondence it has never been published. Collected and edited by David Lough, author of No More Champagne: Churchill and His Money, it sheds new light on Churchill’s development - emotional, intellectual and political. It also paints a vivid picture of motherhood – the poignant passage from young life-giver to elderly burden.    

Book Details:

  • Author: David Lough
  • Published Year: 2018
  • Rights Sold
    • UK: Head of Zeus
    • US: Pegasus
    • China: China Social Sciences Press
David Lough

David Lough

Born in 1950, David Lough won an open history scholarship to Oxford University where he won 1st class honours, studying under historians Richard Cobb, Michael Howard and Theodore Zeldin.  He pursued a career in financial markets, starting in Asia and investment banking, before founding a private banking business in 1988.  It was sold in 2013, by which time it employed a hundred people advising many prominent families across the range of their private affairs, including their investments, tax affairs and inheritance planning.   A former member of the London Stock Exchange and...
More about David Lough

Book Reviews

  • "...excellent explanations of the events involved, the author gives readers first-rate insight into the personalities of mother and son ."
    Kirkus
  • "This superb exchange of letters allows us some real understanding of this unique relationship. "
    William Boyd, New Statesman
  • "This entertaining and illuminating collection, which could be read at a gallop, or at leisure….edited and annotated with an admirable light touch ."
    Literary Review
  • "Readers who enjoy piecing together history and filling in gaps from primary evidence, as well as historians and Churchill enthusiasts, will find much of interest."
    Publishers Weekly
  • "This sparkling volume will be devoured by all who revere Churchill."
    Daily Mail 'Book of the Year'

Book News

  • Recent Foreign Rights sales 29 Apr 2020

    Chinese rights in John Hatcher’s The Black Death: An Intimate History

    Chinese rights in David Lough’s book on Winston Churchill’s correspondence with his mother Darling Winston, Dearest Mamma

  • 'Darling Winston, Dearest Mamma' is Book of the Year 17 Dec 2018

    Congratulations to David Lough whose collection of correspondence between Winston Churchill and his mother , Darling Winston, Dearest Mamma, was a Daily Mail Book of the Year. They wrote ‘This sparkling volume will be devoured by all who revere Churchill.’

  • Darling Winston, Dearest Mamma serialised 08 Sep 2018

    David Lough’s collection of correspondence between Winston Churchill and his mother Darling Winston, Dearest Mamma is serialised in the Daily Mail today.

  • US deal for Winston Churchill letter collection 23 Oct 2017

    North American rights in David Lough’s Darling Winston, Dearest Mamma, a selection of letters between Winston Churchill and his mother, have been bought by Pegasus.