Churchill's Painting and Writing Career
The Nobel Prize-winning author and prolific painter -- how Churchill's creative life sustained him through political exile and personal darkness.
Churchill the Writer
Churchill was one of the most prolific writers in the English language. Over his lifetime, he produced an estimated 15 million words of published material -- more than Shakespeare and Dickens combined. His output included war correspondence, biography, memoir, history, journalism, and one novel ('Savrola,' published in 1900, which he later dismissed).
His major works included 'The River War' (1899), an account of the British campaign in Sudan; the six-volume 'The World Crisis' (1923-1931), his history of World War I; 'Marlborough: His Life and Times' (1933-1938), a four-volume biography of his ancestor the Duke of Marlborough; and his masterwork, 'The Second World War' (1948-1953), a six-volume memoir-history that remains one of the defining accounts of the conflict. He later produced 'A History of the English-Speaking Peoples' (1956-1958) in four volumes.
In 1953, Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 'for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.' He is one of very few political leaders to have won the prize. Churchill's writing was more than a hobby or a sideline. For much of his career, it was his primary income. During the 1930s wilderness years, his prodigious literary output kept him financially afloat while he was excluded from government.