Spurned Winston Churchill’s Love Letters Fetch Record Price
Seven love letters from Winston Churchill to a woman who turned down his marriage proposal were sold Friday for $115,136.
An American collector purchased the turn-of-the-century letters in which Churchill professed his love for Muriel Wilson, daughter of a shipping magnate, according to the auctioneer Christie’s.
“Don’t slam the door,” wrote the man who went on to become Britain’s prime minister during World War II.
“I can wait--perhaps I shall improve with waiting,” he wrote. “Why shouldn’t you care about me some day?”
Churchill’s son, Randolph, said in a biography that his father proposed to the woman but she spurned him.
Churchill eventually married Clementine Hozier in 1908, although he remained lifelong friends with Wilson.
Christie’s said one of the letters fetched $31,350, or 20,900 pounds, breaking a record 18,000 pounds for a Churchill letter sold in 1985.
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