Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

was a prolific writer. Churchill received the Nobel Prize in Literature

Nobel Prize in Literature

Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...

 in 1953 for his numerous published works, especially his six-volume work The Second World War. At the ceremony he was awarded the prize "for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values".

Confusion with the American novelist of the same name

Churchill and his namesake

Winston Churchill (novelist)

Winston Churchill was an American novelist.-Biography:Churchill was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Edward Spalding and Emma Bell Churchill. He attended Smith Academy in Missouri and the United States Naval Academy, where he graduated in 1894...

 and contemporary, the American novelist, are still occasionally confused (as writers): in particular the novels of the "American" Churchill are often incorrectly attributed to the "British" Churchill, or at least listed with them, especially by booksellers. It should be noted the "British Churchill" wrote only one novel Savrola, being better known for his popular histories.

Churchill, upon becoming aware of his namesake's books, then much better known than his own, wrote to him suggesting that he would sign his own works "Winston S. Churchill," using his middle name, "Spencer," to differentiate them. This suggestion was accepted with the comment that the American Churchill would have done the same, had he any middle names.

"The Story of the Malakand Field Force"

His first published book was The Story of the Malakand Field Force. It details an 1897 military campaign

Siege of Malakand

The Siege of Malakand was the 26 July – 2 August 1897 siege of the British garrison in the Malakand region of colonial British India's North West Frontier Province...

 on the Northwest Frontier

Northwest Frontier

North West Frontier is a 1959 British adventure film starring Kenneth More and Lauren Bacall. The film was directed by J. Lee Thompson from a screenplay by Robin Estridge and also features Wilfrid Hyde-White, Herbert Lom and I. S...

 (an area now part of Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

 and Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

).

"Savrola"

Savrola, written on the way to and after the Malakand campaign, is Churchill's only fiction book. It concerns revolution in a fictional European state. Some of its characters are believed to be modelled upon his family.

"The River War"

Churchill's second book, The River War

The River War

The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan is an 1899 book by Winston Churchill, concerning his experiences as a British Army officer, during the Mahdist War in Sudan....

, was an account of the British reconquest of the Sudan

Sudan

Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...

, written in 1899 while he was still an officer in the British army. The book provides a history of the British involvement in the Sudan and the conflict between the British forces led by Lord Kitchener

Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener

Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener KG, KP, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, ADC, PC , was an Irish-born British Field Marshal and proconsul who won fame for his imperial campaigns and later played a central role in the early part of the First World War, although he died halfway...

 and Islamic Jihadists led by a self proclaimed second prophet of Islam Muhammad Ahmad

Muhammad Ahmad

Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah was a religious leader of the Samaniyya order in Sudan who, on June 29, 1881, proclaimed himself as the Mahdi or messianic redeemer of the Islamic faith...

 who had embarked on a campaign to conquer Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

, to drive out the non-Muslim infidels and make way for the second coming of the Islamic Mahdi. Churchill was himself present at the Battle of Omdurman

Battle of Omdurman

At the Battle of Omdurman , an army commanded by the British Gen. Sir Herbert Kitchener defeated the army of Abdullah al-Taashi, the successor to the self-proclaimed Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad...

 which is described as part of the history.

"Thoughts and Adventures"

This particular book is less popular that others written by Churchill. Martin Gilbert

Martin Gilbert

Sir Martin John Gilbert, CBE, PC is a British historian and Fellow of Merton College, University of Oxford. He is the author of over eighty books, including works on the Holocaust and Jewish history...

, Churchill's official biographer, mentions the book only once. He writes:

"Churchill began to put together yet another book, Thoughts and Adventures, a collection of newspaper articles which he had writtenover the past twenty years, on his flying adventures, his air crash, painting as a pastime, a near escape from death on the western front, cartoons and cartoonists, elections, and economics."

In the book, Churchill gives his thoughts on the state of modern affairs. He discusses the threat of scientific progress, particularly the development nuclear weapons. He also discusses the effects of mass civilizations on the human character.

"The Second World War"

The Second World War

The Second World War (Churchill)

The Second World War is a history, originally published in six volumes, of the period from the end of the First World War to July 1945, written by Winston Churchill. It was largely responsible for his being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953...

is a six-volume history of the period from the end of the First World War to July 1945. The most ambitious of any work published by Churchill, it was to take a great portion of his life following his defeat in the 1945 post war election. The first volume was published in 1948 but the work was not finished until 1954.

Essays and short stories

• "Man Overboard!" (1899). First printed in The Harmsworth Magazine, January 1899
• "If Lee Had Not Won the Battle of Gettysburg
  If It Had Happened Otherwise
  If It Had Happened Otherwise is a 1931 collection of essays edited by J. C. Squire and published by Longmans, Green. Each essay in the collection could be considered alternate history or counterfactual history, a few written by leading historians of the period and one by Winston...
  
  " (1930). First published in Scribner's Magazine, December 1930.