The Mentor: American Novelists, Vol. 1, No. 25

by Hamilton Wright Mabie

WINSTON CHURCHILL

Winston Churchill, a master of the historical novel, is the subject of one of the six intaglio-gravure pictures illustrating “American Novelists.”

WINSTON CHURCHILL

Monograph Number Five in The Mentor Reading Course

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.