Winston Churchill (novelist)
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- For the British Prime Minister see Winston Churchill. To avoid confusion the former list his books as by "Winston Churchill the American".
Winston Churchill (November 10, 1871-March 12, 1947) was an American novelist.
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Biography
Churchill was born on in Saint Louis, Missouri, the son of Edward Spalding and Emma Bell (Blaine) Churchill. He attended Smith Academy in Missouri and the United States Naval Academy, where he graduated in 1894 and became an editor of the Army and Navy Journal. He resigned from the navy to pursue a writing career. While he would be most successful as a novelist, he was also a published poet and essayist.
In 1898 he produced his first novel, The Celebrity. Churchill's second novel, Richard Carvel, published the next year, was a phenomenon, literally selling by the box-car. It sold two million copies in a nation of only seventy-six million and made Churchill rich. His next two novels, The Crisis (1901) and The Crossing (1904), were also very successful.
Churchill's early novels were historical but his later works were set in contemporary America. Churchill often sought to include his political ideas into his novels.
In 1899, Churchill moved to Cornish, New Hampshire. He became involved in politics and was elected to the state legislature in 1903 and 1905. He unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for governor in 1906. In 1912, he was nominated as the Progressive candidate for governor but did not win the election. He did not again seek office. In 1917, he toured the battlefields of World War I and wrote about what he saw, his first non-fiction work.
Churchill met and occasionally communicated with the British statesman Winston Churchill. They were both popular, contemporary authors, although the British Churchill wrote only one novel. (Because the American had gotten there first, the British Churchill's books are all signed "Winston S. Churchill".)
In 1919, Churchill decided to enter a prolonged period of self-reflection. He stopped writing and withdrew from public life. As a result of this he was gradually forgotten by the public. In 1940, The Uncharted Way, his first book in twenty years was published. The book was a reflection of Churchill's thoughts on religion. He did not seek to publicize the book and it received little attention. Shortly before his death he said, "It is very difficult now for me to think of myself as a writer of novels, as all that seems to belong to another life."
Churchill died in Winter Park, Florida in 1947.
Bibliography
Novels
- The Celebrity (1898)
- Richard Carvel (1899)
- The Crisis (1901)
- The Crossing (1904)
- Coniston (1906)
- Mr. Crewe's Career (1908)
- A Modern Chronicle (1910)
- The Inside of the Cup (1913)
- A Far Country (1915)
- The Dwelling-Place of Light (1917)
- The Uncharted Way (1940)
Other writings
- A traveller in war-time; with an essay on the American contribution and the democratic idea (1918)
- Dr. Jonathan; A play in three acts (1919)
External links
- Project Gutenberg texts of works by Churchill (http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/authrec?fk_authors=213)