Jennie, Volume II: The Dramatic Years

1971, 1972 Signet edition
Ralph G. Martin
Jennie, Volume II: The Life of Lady Randolph Churchill, The Dramatic Years, 1895-1921
Original price $1.75, purchase price unknown
Very worn paperback
B-

I do feel like I know Jennie better after reading this volume, partly because so much of it is quotes from her letters to and from her sons.  Unfortunately, Martin spends more time on the closing years of the Victorian era than on the 20 years that follow.  I would've liked to read more about Jennie as, well, not old, since she apparently she was eternally youthful, but, well, a grandmother.  She bought an early car, dabbled in amateur films, became sympathetic to women's suffrage, and had two marriages to men who were Winston's age or a bit younger.  Of course, the last part of the 19th century was also busy for Jennie, organising a hospital ship for the Boer War and founding a literary magazine.

Martin went on to write Charles & Diana, "the love story of our generation":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_edKxqGK88
You'd think he'd have learned from the lives of Jennie and Randolph Spencer-Churchill (he a distant relation of Lady Diana Spencer) that love stories don't always end happily.  But in fairness, that quote is from the interviewer, and in 1985 many people thought the Prince and Princess of Wales were happy.  Still ironic though.