On this day in 1921, Winston Churchill’s mother, Jennie, died of complications after a fall, at the age of 67. We recently acquired a number of books from the library of Lady Randolph Churchill, including a First Edition copy of William Hazlitt’s LIBER AMORIS Or, The New Pygmalion, the bizarre, self-justifying apologia written by the great critic in 1823 about his infatuation with one of his landlady's daughters. [See: Item # 15527]

The delicate bookplate on the front pastedown of this handsome, slipcased copy reads: “Jennie Spencer Churchill.” The book’s vintage, full-crimson Morroco binding, filigreed with gilt florettes, has darkened with age but is sti ll quite lovely.

Jeanette ("Jennie") Jerome (1854-1 921) was born in Brooklyn. She married Lord Randolph Henry Spencer Churchill, younger scion of the Duke of Marlborough, in April 1874. Her relationship to her son Winston was famously "affectiona te but distant." Lord Randolph died in 1896. In July 1900 Lady Randolph married George Frederick Myddelton Cornwallis-West (twenty years her junior). They were divorced in 1918. In June 1918 she married Montagu Phippen Porch (twenty-five years her junior), a colonial official serving in Nigeria. The difference in their ages prompted her famous remark, "He has a future and I have a past, so we should be all right." Winston Churchill's personal secretary and intimate friend Edward Marsh described Jennie Churchill as "an incredible and most delightful compound of flagrant wordliness and eternal childhood." 

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