Winston Churchill (novelist)
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- This article discusses the novelist sometimes referred to as "Winston Churchill the American". For the British Prime Minister, see Winston Churchill.
Winston Churchill (November 10, 1871-March 12, 1947) was an American novelist.
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[edit] Biography
Churchill was born in St. 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.
[edit] His first novel?
While it is claimed that his first novel was The Celebrity, published in 1898, a question arises where his novel called Mr. Keegan's Elopement should be placed, because it was published two years earlier in (1896) within a magazine. Later in 1903 it was republished as an illustrated hardback book.
[edit] His success
Churchill's next novel called Richard Carvel, was published the next year. It was a phenomenon, literally selling by the box-car as many as two million copies in a nation of only seventy-six million, and that book 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. Churchill wrote in the naturalist style of literature, and some have called him the most influential of the American naturalists.
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.
Sometime after this move, he took up watercolors, and also became known for his landscapes. Works by him are in the collections of Cornish Colony Museum in Windsor, Vermont, Hood Museum of Art (part of Hopkins Center for the Arts Dartmouth College) in Hanover, New Hampshire, and Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, New Hampshire.
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. Churchill is the great-grandfather of Maine journalist Chris Churchill.
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] Novels
- The Celebrity (1898)
- Richard Carvel (1899)
- The Crisis (1901)
- Mr. Keegan's Elopement (hardback book) (1903) - original copyright as published in magazine format (1896)
- 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)
[edit] Other writings
- Richard Carvel; Play produced on Broadway, (1900-1901)
- The Crisis; Play produced on Broadway, (1902)
- The Crossing; Play produced on Broadway, (1906)
- The Title Mart; Play produced on Broadway, (1906)
- 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)
