TLS signed “Yours sincerely, Winston S. Churchill,” one page, 8 x 10, Chartwell letterhead, August 6, 1935. Letter to his proofreader and editor C. C. Wood relating to the publication of the monumental biography Marlborough: His Life and Times. In full: "I send you herewith chapters V and VI which have been completely reconstituted and a new chapter, VIII. For your convenience I append a list of the chapters; VII 'The Year of Triumph' is nearly done. It may be possible to cut down the correspondence later. I also send you chapters I, II and III for second revise, leaving only for revise 'The Battle of Ramillies' which I will send in a few days. Pray let me have six copies of all these as they come through. I will send you very shortly a number of maps and I shall be glad if your man would draw them out and let me have them in draft. Please therefore make the arrangement you proposed with him. I will not worry about Swain's." In fine condition, with an area of thin paper to the upper left corner.
Churchill was commissioned to write a biography of his ancestor, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, in 1929. He began writing it in earnest in 1932, and ultimately published four volumes between 1933 and 1938. He began the work in an effort to refute earlier criticisms of Marlborough by the historian Thomas Babington Macaulay. This exquisite letter reveals Churchill’s meticulousness and attention to detail as a writer, which would ultimately lead to his receipt of the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature for ‘his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.’
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