Rather than interrupt the flow of the narrative by converting the pounds earned and spent into today’s dollars, it will be enough to point out that the fees Churchill negotiated can be compared with today’s money only by factoring in inflation and changing exchange rates. So, too, with expenses.
From early days Churchill earned huge sums by the standards of his day—Lough characterizes him as “The Highest Paid War Correspondent, 1899–1900.”1 Churchill was enormously proud of his ability to earn large fees. On January 1, 1901, in the midst of his first American lecture tour, he wrote to his mother: “I am vy [sic] proud of the fact that there is not one person in a million who at my age could have earned £10,000 without any capital in less than two years.”2
Later in life Churchill sold his memoirs for $2.5 million in 1947 to an American syndicate led by Henry Luce’s Life magazine. That comes to about $30 million in today’s money and was only one of many lucrative deals he was able to negotiate throughout his working life.
Churchill lived a lifestyle that included nothing but the best, made some unwise investments, and paid numerous visits to the gaming rooms in the south of France. He also lived a life of almost ceaseless hard work to finance that lifestyle, while also serving in Parliament and ministerial offices, and holding together the alliance that defeated the Axis powers.
Churchill died a millionaire and left a substantial estate. “I make my living by my pen and my tongue,” he declared. And a good living it was, to go along with a good life.