The St. Augustine River War Chimera

[Dave Turrell]

Peter,

 

Since nobody else has picked up on your question, I’ll take a shot at it, having been an erstwhile troublemaker on this topic.

 

In the last communication I had with Bruce Fingerhut of the St. Augustine Press, on 10/24/2016,  I said:

 

“I note that your website still shows a publication date of September 2016 for Jim Muller’s annotated edition of Churchill’s ‘The River War’...  While I realise that you will keep putting out nonsense publication dates, do you think you could at least have the decency to stop referring to Lady Soames as ‘Churchill’s only surviving child”. She has been dead for well over two years. Perhaps you were not aware of this”.

 

I received the following response:

 

“I am well aware of Lady Soames’s death two years ago, though not aware that “only surviving child” was mentioned on our website. We have been working on this project for over ten years, and it is almost complete. In the next two or three weeks, I will know exactly when it will finally appear . . . most certainly not until sometime in early 2017”.

 

In checking the St. Augustine website today, I note that the publication date is now given as January 2018.  And that Lady Soames is still referred to as “Churchill’s only surviving child”.

 

https://www.staugustine.net/our-books/books/the-river-war/

 

In all honesty, Peter, I think we have to give up on the appearance of this edition.  It seems clear that St. Augustine have already done so.

 

Perhaps Hillsdale could be persuaded to wrest the content from St. Augustine and continue their magnificent service in presenting Churchill to the world.  They, at least, are honest in their communications.

 

Dave

 

From: 'Peter D. Wrobel' via ChurchillChat [mailto:church...@googlegroups.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2019 2:32 PM
To: church...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [ChurchillChat] The Churchill Documents and Future Projects

 

Speaking of long term projects, does anyone have an update on when the new edition of The River War is expected?  Thanks. 

 

Peter Wrobel. 

Sent from my iPhone XS Max

[Peter D. Wrobel]

Thanks Antoine.  This is so confusing.  And annoying since I paid for the book.  

Sent from my iPhone XS Max

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[pollo...@rcn.com]

Dave -

Thanks for your message and for "taking a shot" at the publication date of The River War.

Obviously, the St. Augustine's Press website has not been updated and I will have ask them to do so this week.

More importantly, I have recently been in touch with Prof. Muller who reports that he has completed the text and is currently working on the Index, which alone is, as you surely know, a major task, involving hundreds of entries.  He hopes to have that done in the next couple of months at which point the whole work can be submitted to the publisher.

St. Augustine can't publish until the completed manuscript is submitted and thus any complaint about the date (apart from their inaccurate website) is more logically addressed to Prof. Muller.  However before anyone does that, it should remembered that Jim has selflessly devoted years of his life and a great deal of blood, toil, etc. towards the completion of this and his other Churchill works.  He knows that that The River War has taken a long time and understands that his original estimates of the timing were too optimistic.  He is nevertheless dedicated to ensuring the the new edition, a work that will stand for decades to come, is published.

There is no one who has worked more diligently and longer, for very modest compensation, to preserve Churchill's work than Jim and his efforts should be applauded and encouraged by all of us.  The International Churchill Society has helped to support Jim's work over the years, most recently enabling him to hire a research assistant to work on the Index.   If any member of this group would like to assist with this, our address is:  P.O. Box 58279, Washington, DC 20037.  Any contributions will go directly to Jim's work on this project. 

The interest of members of this group is appreciated and I will be sure to update you further in future.  

Thank you.

Lee Pollock

The International Churchill Society

lpol...@winstonchurchill.org 

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From: "'Dave Turrell' via ChurchillChat" <church...@googlegroups.com>
To: church...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Saturday, June 29, 2019 7:07:39 PM
Subject: [ChurchillChat] The St. Augustine River War Chimera