Working papers for A History of the English-Speaking Peoples.

[c.1956-58]. Churchill's masterpiece takes form A significant archive of material from the composition of Churchill's classic A History of the English Speaking Peoples, including a galley proof chapter of "The United States" initialled by Churchill. The archive was preserved by Denis Kelly (1937-1992), a key player in Churchill's large team of historians and assistants with whom he produced the work. Kelly was a barrister by training and first met Churchill in 1947 when he was chosen to catalogue Churchill's papers. Waving his arm at the tottering piles, Churchill told Kelly "your task, my boy, is to make Cosmos out of Chaos" (cited in Gilbert, p. 331). This archive shows he had much the same role in the writing of the History. Most of the material relates to the third and fourth volumes of the history (including chapters on the American Revolution, Peninsular War, Napoleon, the Indian Empire, and the Seven Years War). It chiefly comprises two components: typescript précis of the works of other historians to be used as source material, and galley proofs of the drafted text for further revisions. For the latter, typescript drafts were sent to the printer, set in type and returned as galley proofs, which were then revised by Churchill and his team and sent back. New galley proofs then came back, and the process continued until finalized. The archive contains hundreds of pages of such galley proofs, indicative of the extent of revision - marked "first revise", "second revise", "third revise", and, in one instance "fourth revised". When compared to the published version of the book, all these revisions show considerable variation. Similarly, the extent to which these galleys were circulated around the team is evidence by the number of copies Kelly retained - in one case, eight separate copies of a chapter. Many of them have some form of annotation in the hand of Kelly or other individuals. Churchill has initialled the eight pages of galleys comprising the chapter on "The United States" published in vol. III; he likely initialled the galley to approve the manuscripts revisions they contain, one of which was objecting to the sentence "It was the fleet of De Grasse that beat the British in America", implying it was the French not the Americans who won the Revolutionary War. This was duly omitted from the published book. Kelly is thanked in the acknowledgements page of each of the four volumes when they were eventually published over 1956 to 1958. Kelly also worked with Churchill on his Second World War and produced the abridged edition, published in 1959. Churchill's A full list of contents is available on request. Provenance: the collection of Steve Forbes. c. 950 pages, including some duplicated, comprising manuscript, carbon typed drafts, and galley proofs, most wire-stitched or with cloth ties, folio and quarto formats (various sizes). In generally very good condition. Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, Volume VIII, 1988.