Shawn just wrote a post about Obama and PM Brown’s gifts to one another. News reports and a National Review blog entry describe the Martin Gilbert biography as seven volumes.
I’m certain the press has gotten the number of volumes wrong or described the books incorrectly. The award winning bio in question was begun by Winston Churchill’s son Randolph. He wrote two volumes before dying. The rest of the bio was finished by Gilbert. Total amount of volumes Gilbert wrote? Six.
Where am I relying on this information from? Two places, Amazon and Wikipedia. Some of the volumes can still be bought. I’ll list them-
By Gilbert
* Winston S Churchill: Volume Three: The Challenge of War: 1914-1916, (1971)
* Winston S Churchill: Volume Four: The Stricken World 1917-1922, (1975)
* Winston S Churchill: Volume Five: Prophet of Truth 1922-1939, (1979)
* Winston S Churchill: Volume Six: Finest Hour 1939-1941, (1983)
* Winston S Churchill: Volume Seven: Road to Victory 1941-1945, (1986)
* Winston S Churchill: Volume Eight: Never Despair 1945-1965, (1988)
By Randolph Churchill
# Winston S Churchill: Volume One: Youth, 1874-1900 (1966)
# Winston S Churchill: Volume Two: Young Statesman, 1901-1914 (1967)
All eight books had companions, companion one was done by Randolph, Martin Gilbert did two after Randolph died, and all the rest.
The actual bio is eight volumes, six by Gilbert and two by Churchill’s son. Was the press mistaking the companions for the actual bio? Then seven would be right, but that isn’t the Churchill biography.
You can check this all at Wikipedia and Amazon if you want. The reporting of this story is wrong, and facts are important.
I began reading the bio but didn’t get past the second volume. That’s because I moved and no longer had access to the books I was getting from a public library in Maryland.
