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.
OWEN WISTER
Owen Wister, a drawer of real, vital characters, is the subject of one of the six intaglio-gravure pictures illustrating “American Novelists.”
OWEN WISTER
Monograph Number Six in The Mentor Reading Course