Dark Lady: Winston Churchill's Mother and Her World »

Son of the advertising pioneer Sir Charles Frederick Higham, MP, Charles Higham is the author of Howard Hughes: The Secret Life, a basis of the film The Aviator, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. His Mrs Simpson: Secret Lives of the Duchess of Windsor, has been a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller and he has written bestselling lives of Katherine Hepburn, Bette Davis and Orson Welles. A former New York Times feature writer and recipient of the Académie Française Prize of the Creators, he lives in Los Angeles.

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.

Publishers Weekly

It would be difficult to write a tedious account of beautiful and appealing Jennie Jerome (1854-1921), who gave birth to future British prime minister Winston Churchill, but celebrity biographer Higham (The Duchess of Windsor) has managed to do just that. In gossipy but unexciting prose, he details the minutiae of Jennie's birth and childhood in Brooklyn, N.Y., as the daughter of Leonard Jerome, a corrupt and criminal investor who frequently traveled in Europe. In 1874 Jennie, against the family's opposition, married Lord Randolph Churchill, who, with his wife's eager backing, became deeply involved in English politics. The couple spent much of their time in and out of sexual liaisons and scandals until Randolph's death in 1895. They also ran up huge gambling debts. Jennie married twice more (the second union ended in divorce) to much younger men. The author's attempt to turn a flashy, compulsively promiscuous socialite into an early feminist fails miserably, although the fact that Jennie established a magazine and built a hospital for wounded troops during WWI is of interest. Winston, who was conceived before his parents' marriage, makes brief appearances. Replete with sensational details, this account nevertheless fails to bring its subject to life. Photos. (Feb.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Chapter 1     1
Chapter 2     17
Chapter 3     27
Chapter 4     34
Chapter 5     54
Chapter 6     75
Chapter 7     109
Chapter 8     135
Chapter 9     158
Chapter 10     170
Chapter 11     204
Chapter 12     219
Appendix     227
Acknowledgments     229
Selective Bibliography     232
Notes on Sources     236
Index     242