A Modern Chronicle

by Winston Churchill, J. H. Gardner Soper (Illustrator)

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Genres: Fiction

536 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1910

About the author

This is not the British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Spencer Churchill. This is the American novelist, Winston Churchill.

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.

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 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. Some of his works 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.

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 is the great-grandfather of Albany, New York, journalist Chris Churchill.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston...]

Reviews

[Larry Piper · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, I learned something from this book. Never follow up Nevil Shute with an author who tends to be a bit wordy and on the ponderous side. Reading through the first 10–15% of the book was a bit tough, but after I got used to the style, I mostly liked this book. It's the fifth Churchill book I've read in the past few years. It's probably the one I like least, in part because it has not stood the test of time nearly so well as the others. As I understand it, Churchill first wrote historical novels. The two that I've read are quite good. Then he moved on to social commentary. This falls into that category, but is no where near so good as the other two I've read, The Inside of the Cup and The Dwelling Place of Light. The social commentary in both those books is still fairly apt to today's problems. This book, not so much.

Basically, it's the story of a young woman, who is rather a princess, albeit one with a good heart, or something. She assumes that she deserves the best things in life and works to ensure that she gets them. So, she marries someone she thinks will become obscenely rich, and thereby bestow all the finest things upon her. After a while, she realizes there's more to life than material goods and divorces him so as to marry for "love". Love, in this case being the bogus concept of romantic love which is primarily a marketing fiction, from minstrel days, if not before, and something that doesn't actually exist (although many will claim otherwise: merely willful self delusion—btw, this all is my editorializing, not Churchill's). Anyway, she figures out that so-called "love" doesn't exactly cut it either and finishes up finding that real love is not about self-delusional romantic impulses, but is built upon a patiently built framework of friendship and trust. Something like that.

Anyway, it's a pretty good book. Nobody much reads Winston Churchill these days, which is a pity. He is still an author with much to offer.

[L. · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a soap opera this is a rather dry read. As a social commentary this is a rather dry read. As a dry read this is a rather dry read.

I just never liked the main character. Honora has all these men falling in love with her but I saw no reason why except for the fact Churchill made them fall in love with her. Honora is all about Honora. She's never allows herself to be happy because she feels she doesn't have enough. She doesn't have enough money, she doesn't have enough new dresses, she doesn't have enough houses with the right address, she doesn't have enough men mooning over her. Blah, blah, blah.