Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1955. He was born in 1874 and died on January 24, 1965. Other than being a great leader, especially in war times, Sir Winston Churchill was also a writer, army officer, historian and artist. He was awarded the Noble Prize in Literature in 1953 and became the first person who received the honorary citizen of the United States of America.
Many have written a range of books on Sir Winston Churchill’s biography. One of the principal authors among them was Hon Sir Martin Gilbert (1936 to 2015). An honorary fellow of the University of Oxford, he had written about 90 books including the Winston Churchill biography book. However, Churchill’s son Randolph Churchill had written some chapters of the biography, and Gilbert also provided a supervisory role in some chapters. They went to press under Randolph Churchill’s name and the 17th volume of the biography by Gilbert being published in 2014.
Another famous author who compiled a biography of Winston Churchill was William Manchester. He was a historian who was born in 1922 in Attleboro, Massachusetts. His famous biography of the American President Kennedy, published in 1967, has a grand record of 1.3 million hardcover copies sold. In 1983, he published Vision of Glory 1874-1932 – and then again ‘Alone’, 1932-1940 in 1988.
After Manchester’s death, according to his wishes, Paul Reid wrote and published the last volume of the biography called The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill and published in 2012. Accordingly, the first volume ‘Vision of Glory, 1874-1932’ appeared in print in 1983 and ‘Alone, 1932-1940’ in 1988. After that, William Manchester wrote and published his final volume called ‘Defender of the Real, 1940-1965 in 2012. His death was recorded in 2004 at the age of 82. Manchester was unable to finish the third volume of Churchill’s biography. He was in doubt that anyone can write it for him even though he had done all the necessary research and gathered information to finish the biography of Churchill.
However, he finally chose Paul Reid to finish the final chapter of Winston Churchill’s biography. He was a feature writer attached to Cox Newspapers. His last work includes Churchill’s time as the Prime Minister of the UK during the World War II. The book was published in 2012. It was only after 24 years that the final volume came out in print. The author Reid had worked in the manufacturing field and then earned a BA from Harvard Extension School in 1990. Then he chose journalism for his career.
