The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill

by Enright, Dominique

• ISBN13: 9781854795298
• ISBN10: 1854795295
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-10-01
• Publisher: Michael O'Mara

Summary

Sir Winston Churchill was the greatest orator of his day, the greatest statesman of his age, and the greatest Englishman of the 20th century. This enchanting collection gathers hundreds of his funniest and wickedest quips in tribute to the exhilarating wit of this great-hearted, infuriatingly conceited, wildly funny, and brilliantly talented Englishman.

Author Biography

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born in 1874, the eldest son of Lord Randolph Churchill and his American wife. As a junior officer he fought in four campaigns; as a war correspondent in South Africa he made an epic escape from Boer captivity; in politics he held numerous ministerial posts and, from the back benches in the 1930s, increasingly warned of the dangers of German rearmament, of appeasement, and of Britain's unreadiness for war. In May 1940 he succeeded Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister. His inspiring leadership of the British people, and the war-winning relationships he established with America and the Soviet Union, won him worldwide fame, while as leader of the Opposition after the war he was an overwhelming presence on the international stage. In 1951 he became Prime Minister again, resigning, aged eighty-one, in 1955. He died in 1965 and, after a magnificent state funeral, was buried in the graveyard of the tiny parish church close to Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, the house in which he had been born. Remembered as a politician, as a wartime leader, and as the last of the great public orators, Churchill's reputation also rests upon his many books, notably his magisterial histories, which include The World Crisis (1923-9), Marlborough (1933-8), The Second World War (1948-54) and A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (1956-8) Dominique Enright is a freelance writer and editor

Table of Contents

Introduction	9	(8)
Be killed many times: Politics	17	(12)
Terminological diversions: Words	29	(8)
`Pigs treat us as equals': Animals, real and metaphorical	37	(8)
Casting pearls: Speeches	45	(8)
Friends like these	53	(22)
`Of course I'm an egoist'	75	(12)
`What kind of people?': The nations according to Churchill	87	(8)
Henpecked?: Women and the family	95	(14)
`An ineradicable habit': Drink	109	(8)
`Gleaming toys': Anecdotes	117	(26)
`Our maxims will remain': Epigrams	143	(8)
Miscellanea	151