pumpkinstrokemarrow

Truly an impressive achievement. One wonders whether Gilbert, sometime fellow of Merton College, did it all himself or whether he had a team of research assistants behind the scenes. One wonders what his wife thought about it all. I learn from my rather shorter biography of Churchill by Sebastian Haffner that the Gilbert biography rates an entry in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest ever biography. Haffner is a good read if you want a quick introduction.

Next step is to approach Heinemann to see if they can throw any light on the variations in paper weight and thickness - supplied by Reed & Smith Ltd. Clearly, they did not buy enough paper for the whole job at the outset. Perhaps their policy is that, for a certain class of book, they use just one sort of paper and it all lives in one tub. No special papers for special books. But that one sort does change from time to time, reflecting the exigencies of the paper harvest in Finland. So for a large and long project of this sort, the paper will vary a bit.

For full details see http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8152054/Churchill_1.xls.

Otherwise, standard of book production very good. Sturdy red cloth covers. Good type face and page layout. Reasonable provision of maps and pictures. Index, potted biogs. of all the dukes and duchesses who flit through the pages. Was it subsidised? I think most of the many books by Churchill sold very well, made most of his living anyway; did this one?

Lunch at the continuing excellent http://www.frerejacques.co.uk/. Moules, cheese and calvados. Cheese very good. Not too much of it and served, if desired, with bread.