Dark Lady: Winston Churchill's Mother and Her World

By Charles Higham

Book Overview

In this sensational new book, bestselling author Charles Higham draws from previously overlooked sources in America and Britain to tell the fascinating story of Jennie Jerome, mother of Winston Churchill -- feminist, advocate of Irish independence, and notoriously promiscuous society belle. It charts her luxurious New York upbringing, eyebrow-raising entry into the British aristocracy through marriage to Lord Randolph Churchill, her endless line of liaisons with much younger men and a very different sort of affair in the highest of places -- with the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII (one of many kings and princes to win her affection). Long before women had the vote, Jennie broke the rules by campaigning in elections for her husband, Lord Randolph Churchill. A staunch freethinker, she edited her own magazine, fought for Protestant interests in Ireland and sailed a hospital ship to South Africa, where she risked her life in the Boer War. Passionately in love with life, expressive of her sexuality when women were supposed to hide it, beautiful and independent minded, Jennie Churchill was decades ahead of her time.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786718897
• ISBN13: 9780786718894
• Release Date: December 2006
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers
• Length: 250 Pages
• Weight: 1.13 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Dark Lady

Rich in detail. Remarkable insight into a complex character in a remarkably important family, in Victorian and Edwardian Britain. Politics,Monarchy and Aristocracy interwoven with sex and scandal. A great read for anyone interested in the Churchills.