Churchill writes opinion pieces for various newspapers and makes political speeches that initially are heckled by the small groups in attendance.
“England is lost in a pacifist dream,” he says early on, depressed by his lack of power, near-bankruptcy and, on the political front, the rising support for Adolf Hitler. Telepic covers the years 1934-39, and at the outset, Churchill is a staunch yet outmoded imperialist. Churchill’s vision of preparedness was translated as war-mongering, and indeed, nothing brings him greater political joy than the message, delivered at pic’s end, “Winston is back!” Pic grants Churchill considerable humanity: His love for England, shot beautifully by Peter Hannan, and wife Clemmie (played beguilingly by Redgrave) are the forces that guide him, not the desire to plant the Union Jack in foreign territories. “Gathering” assiduously tiptoes through Brit history of the mid-1930s without mentioning trouble among the royals or Neville Chamberlain’s attempts to talk Hitler out of storming Czechoslovakia or Poland. Churchill is seen formulating speeches, working on his cadence, writing articles and editing himself extensively, and sticking to his guns after taking unpopular stances he does these tasks anywhere, from the bathtub to bars to the grounds around his mansion where he paints landscapes. Hugh Whitemore’s script captures Britain’s future prime minister as he is reconstructing himself from has-been blowhard concerned with Gandhi to the man who foresaw the Nazi threat. It placed number one on the 100 best non-fiction books of the twentieth century by National Review magazine.Physically, Finney makes for a great Churchill, and the mannerisms, not to mention the deep, authoritative tone in his voice, all suggest tremendous character study on Finney’s part. Named by Modern Library as one of the 100 best non-fiction books of the twentieth century. “It was wholly appropriate that in 1953 Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature” (Keegan). Overall, this is a very good set of a great collection. Each volume is free from previous owners inscriptions and internally clean. The text blocks are markedly bright and with only very slight foxing present.
The boards are free from chips and marks and are all tight at the spine and sharp at the corners. They have light edgewear and occasional chipping to the toned spine tips. The dust wrappers have not been price clipped, with the first four showing the original 25s net price, and the latter two 30s net. The collection is in very good (or better) condition, and as each volume is in very similar condition, I shall describe them as a whole.
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