TLS signed “Yours sincerely, Winston S. Churchill,” two pages, 8 x 10, Chartwell letterhead, March 1, 1935. Letter to Irene Vanbrugh, in full: “I enjoyed Viceroy Sarah very much. I thought the many difficulties of a historical play of this kind were admirably surmounted and the result was to give a striking impression of the personalities and the times. I thought your own rendering of Sarah was brilliant and Queen Annie also was excellently presented. The last scene is dated on the programme as January 1711. This is of course old style. They counted the year from the 1st of April and consequently January 1711 is really January 1712. Marlborough commanded the armies all through 1711 and was not dismissed until the beginning of the next year. Reggie and his wife lunched with me the other day and I was very glad to find them both in the best of spirits and health. I am hardly ever in London at tea time except when India Bill is on. Then I am glued to my bench in the House of Commons, so pray forgive me if I do not make an appointment.” Churchill handwrites the greeting and adds a brief typed postscript at the conclusion, “If it would be any use to publish the substance of my comments on the play I should be delighted.” Partial separations to central vertical and horizontal folds (one vertical fold passing through a single letter of the signature), and light creasing, otherwise fine condition.
A prominent English actress with over fifty years of stage experience, Vanbrugh portrayed Sarah Jennings, the Duchess of Marlborough, to widespread critical acclaim in Norman Ginsbury’s 1935 play Viceroy Sarah, but it was perhaps the approval of Churchill—a direct descendant to John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough and the husband to the beautiful and fiery Jennings—that proved most affirming. Steeped in knowledge concerning his own ancestry, and having spent much of his ‘wilderness years’ writing the biography Marlborough: His Life and Times, Churchill was all too eager to point out discrepancies relating to the date and time of the Duke’s untimely dismissal. An intriguing association piece relating to the Churchill name’s rich and celebrated ancestry. Pre-certified PSA/DNA.
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