110. While England Slept by Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill was not above re-titling his works to suit the Yanks. In 1938, Putnam’s, his American publishers, cabled him to ask for an alternative title for Arms and the Covenant, a volume of his collected speeches. Churchill suggested The Years of the Locust, but the cable operator garbled the message and it arrived as The Years of the Lotus. Putnam’s were puzzled. They knew that the lotus was a plant famous for its soporific properties, and, in an attempt to give a sense of this, settled on While England Slept. This was an inspired choice in the climate of German rearmament, and the book went on to be a best-seller. It also had one unexpected consequence: in 1940 the young John F Kennedy, searching for a title for his graduate thesis on the build-up to war, called it Why England Slept (i.e. 'Why' not 'While').

Consulted:
Lockhart, Robert Hamilton Bruce: Your England‎ (1955)