Jennie: The Romantic Years, 1854-1895

1969, 1970 Signet edition
Ralph G. Martin
Jennie: The Life of Lady Randolph Churchill, The Romantic Years, 1854-1895
Original price $1.50, purchase price unknown
Very worn and waterlogged paperback
B-

The first of two volumes (the latter published in 1971), this covers the life of Winston Churchill's mother through the death of her first husband, Randolph, whose success in politics was mostly her doing, while his failures were mostly his own.  Their marriage was an unhappy one, partly due, Martin contends, to Randolph's syphilis.  A quick Internet search shows that there's not complete agreement on the causes of his death, but Martin believes that Randolph contracted the disease during his university days and it led to poor health, impotence and/or homosexuality, and eventually insanity and death.

In any case, although it was initially a love match, with Winston born about seven months later, the Churchills grew apart and Jennie had several affairs, including with the Prince of Wales.  Perhaps it's Martin's style, but I didn't realize till the end that one lover in particular, Karl Kinsky, was the great love of her life.  As with the Ingrid Bergman biography, I felt distanced from the subject.  Not that I wanted to know the nitty-gritty details, but I never felt like I got much insight into what Jennie was thinking or feeling.  The Queen Victoria biography is much more personal, although some of the events are even more distant from the time of writing than in this case.

The best parts of the book are actually about the fashions and fads of the time, and about side characters, like Randolph's brother Blandford, later the Duke of Marlborough, who wrote him a fifteen-stanza elegy discouraging him from marrying Jennie.  Lady Churchill was beautiful, brave, and clever, but I don't really feel like I know her much better after reading this book.  We'll see how I feel after Volume II.