Winston Churchill (novelist)
Winston Churchill (November 10, 1871 - March 12, 1947) was an American novelist, one of the best selling novelists of the early 20th century.
He is nowadays overshadowed, even as a writer, by his very much more famous namesake, the British statesman, with whom he was acquainted, but not related. Their lives had some interesting parallels.
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. At the Naval Academy, he was conspicuous alike in scholarship and in general student activities. He became an expert fencer and he organized at Annapolis the first eight-oared crew, of which he was for two years captain. After his graduation, he became an editor of the Army and Navy Journal. He resigned from the navy to pursue a writing career. In 1895, he became managing editor of the Cosmopolitan Magazine, but in less than a year he retired that he might have more time for writing. While he would be most successful as a novelist, he was also a published poet and essayist.
His first novel was The Celebrity (1898). (Mr. Keegan's Elopement was published in 1896 within a magazine. In 1903 it was republished as an illustrated hardback book.) Churchill's next novel—Richard Carvel (1899)—was a phenomenon, selling as many as two million copies in a nation of only 76 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. He 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 1898, a mansion designed by Charles Platt was built for him in Cornish, New Hampshire. In 1899, Churchill moved there and named it Harlakenden House. He became involved in the Cornish Art Colony, and 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. Some of his works are in the collections of the Hood Museum of Art (part of Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College) in Hanover, New Hampshire, and the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, New Hampshire.
In 1919, Churchill decided to stop 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 20 years, was published. The book examined 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. He was predeceased in 1945 by his wife of fifty years, the former Mabel Harlakenden Hall. They had three children, including their son Creighton Churchill, a well-known writer about wines. His great-grandson is Albany, New York journalist Chris Churchill.
Confusion with the British statesman
Churchill met and occasionally communicated with the British statesman and author Winston Churchill (no known relation). It was the American Churchill who became famous earlier, and in the 1890s he was much better known than his British counterpart. The two are still occasionally confused, mostly by sellers of second-hand books, although the British Churchill wrote only one novel, Savrola, being better known for his popular histories and journalism.
Both Churchills had political careers, and were both noted amateur painters. The similarities extend to their tertiary education; both attended service colleges and briefly served (during the same period) as officers in their respective countries' armed forces. One of course was a naval, the other an army officer.
The British Churchill, upon becoming aware of the American Churchill's books, wrote to him suggesting that he would sign his own works "Winston S. Churchill", using his middle name (actually part of his full surname, "Spencer-Churchill") to differentiate them. This suggestion was accepted, with the comment that the American Churchill would have done the same, had he any middle names.
- The Celebrity (1898)
- Richard Carvel (1899)
- The Crisis (1901)
- Mr. Keegan's Elopement (hardback book) (1903) - originally copyright (1896) when published in magazine format
- 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)
- 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 (1918)
- Dr. Jonathan; A play in three acts (1919)
- The Psychology of the Gospel Doctrine
- "Churchill, Winston". Encyclopædia Britannica (12th ed.). 1922.
- "CHURCHILL, Winston". Who's Who, 59: p. 335. 1907.
- (28 May 1945). MRS. WINSTON CHURCHILL; Wife of American Novelist Dies in New Hampshire, The New York Times
- (1 December 1984). Creighton Churchill Is Dead; Wine Writer and Consultant, The New York Times
- Couture, Michael (22 February 1972). Creighton Churchill: A wine taster par excellence, Boca Raton News
- Charles Child Walcutt, The Romantic Compromise in the Novels of Winston Churchill (1951)
- Warren Irving Titus, Winston Churchill (1963)
- Ernest Erwin Leisy, The American Historical Novel (1950)
- Grant C. Knight, The Strenuous Age in American Literature (1954)
- Joseph L. Blotner, The Political Novel (1955)
- Robert W. Schneider, Novelist to a Generation: The Life and Thought of Winston Churchill (1976)
|Wikisource has original text related to this article:|
- Works by Winston Churchill at Project Gutenberg
- Works by Winston Churchill at ReadBookOnLine.net
- That Other Winston Churchill, from The Churchill Centre (Archived from archive.org)
- The American Winston Churchill
- Coniston (1906) study guide
- The Churchill Society
- History buff recounts tale of two Churchills
- Winston Churchill