The Young Titan, by Michael Shelden; Churchill’s First War, by Con Coughlin – review

One evening in 1906, shortly after the election that brought Campbell-Bannerman’s Liberals into power, an understandably nervous Eddie Marsh, a middle-ranking civil servant in the Colonial Office, paid a social call on the Dowager Countess of Lytton.  The previous day Marsh had gone through a tricky first meeting with the new number two in the department, and it had been a surprise to him on going into the office that morning to hear that he was wanted as his private secretary.  ‘Desperate, Marsh begged the dowager countess for guidance,’ writes Michael Shelden in his Young Titan:

She had known Winston and Jennie for many years… She had also been acquainted with Lord Randolph. So she understood Marsh’s concerns, but she gave him some good advice while they sat and discussed his future. ‘The wfirst time you meet Winston, you see all his faults,’ she said, ‘and the rest of your life you spend in discovering his virtues.