Posted by John Wilson on February 07, 2007 at 22:57:24 from 202.154.140.216 user hugo.
In Reply to: Re: Winston Churchill Was- Re: Postcard of Coniston - 1930's posted by Adam Quinan on February 06, 2007 at 11:16:53:
I have my grandfather’s copy of “The Crossing” by Winston Churchill, He was the author of “Richard Carvel“ (1899, his first best-seller), “The Crisis“ (1901, set in the American Civil War), “The Celebrity“ (1904) etc. Wikipedia has him as Winston Churchill (novelist) 1871-1947, the “American novelist.
My copy was published by Macmillan’s Colonial Library, 1904 for circulation only in India and the British Colonies, Copyright 1903. It is set in America, when Louisana became part of America, not French or Spanish. He says in an afterward written 1904 in Boston that it is about “that great movement across the mountains which swept restlessly over the Continent until at last it saw the Pacific itself.” He wonders whether “the Constitution, made to meet the needs of the little confederacy of the swaboard, (would) stretch over a Continent and an Empire?”
Re Christmas books, Wikipedia says of the 19c British boys’ adventure books of G A Henty (eg With Clive in India) that there is a misapprehension that they were published in America first ie before Britain. This was because the first UK editions were always dated for the coming year, to have them looking fresh for Christmas!