Although he graduated from Annapolis in 1894, Winston Churchill
never served in the navy. Instead, immediately after completing
his studies he began writing. He had found out that he could write
when he was still at Annapolis, and decided that fiction rather
than the navy was his line of work. For this the young graduate had
fine equipment. Annapolis gave him self-reliance and determination.
Those graduates of the Naval Academy who have not gone into the
navy have usually been successful in whatever they have done. This
is particularly true in the case of Churchill. Well educated, at
the same time he is full of the joy of life itself, and likes all
sorts of outdoor sports. He is a favorite everywhere.
Winston Churchill was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on November 10,
1871, and spent the first sixteen years of his life there. From a
school in St. Louis he went to Annapolis. There he became strongly
interested in American history and problems, and made up his mind
to devote his life and energies to these. In the brief intervals
between studies and drills he gathered much of the material that he
afterward used in his novels.
While at Annapolis he stood among the first five or six in his
class. He also reorganized the crew and was captain for a year.
He likewise played a good game of football. Fencing, tennis, and
horseback riding are his favorite sports.
For awhile after graduation he worked on the Army and Navy Journal,
and then joined the staff of the Cosmopolitan Magazine. During this
time he wrote a great deal; but did not attempt to publish these
first experiments in fiction.
He married in 1895 and moved not long afterward to his home at
Cornish, New Hampshire. Churchill was very fortunate. He did not
have to earn a living by doing hackwork, and could take plenty of
time with anything that he wrote.
It is said that genius is the capacity for taking great pains.
Winston Churchill surely illustrates this adage. Hard work,
determination, and a keen sense of values made him the successful
novelist that he is. He was ambitious to write the very best he
knew how. Once, when living in St. Louis, he hired an office and
went down to it as regularly as any other man of business. His
writing was business, and was treated as such.
He rewrote “Richard Carvel” at least five times. He worked from
breakfast until one o’clock, after lunch for two or three hours,
and after dinner often far into the night. This, the first of
three of Winston Churchill’s novels dealing with American history,
became the most popular book in the United States. “The Crisis,”
the second of these historical novels, appeared a few years after
“Richard Carvel,” and in 1904 “The Crossing,” the last of the
trilogy, was published. The background for “The Crisis” was the
Civil War, and “The Crossing” dealt with the great western movement
across the country.
Churchill has served in the New Hampshire legislature, and also
ran for the governorship of that state. “Coniston” was a direct
outgrowth of his political associations. The novel is a story of
politics, with a charming love story running through it.
Winston Churchill is still a young man, and there is every reason
to believe that his best and biggest work is still to come.
[Illustration: OWEN WISTER]
Owen Wister, a drawer of real, vital characters, is the subject
of one of the six intaglio-gravure pictures illustrating
“American Novelists.”