Winston Churchill: An Informal Study of Greatness

“For seventy-seven years he has flashed over the public scene, a beckoning, outsized diamond in a trumpery world. Before moments of British crisis, he has been so uniformly right that his incandescent prescience has itself become a burden to his colleagues and to his countrymen at large.”

Former British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, led one of the most astonishing lives that public service has ever witnessed.

In An Informal Study of Greatness, Taylor presents the early life of this mythologised and prodigiously talented man.

Focusing on the school years of a young Winston Churchill and the early experiences that shaped his ambition, this fascinating biography delves into the private life of Churchill as a student, a journalist and a soldier.

This a delightful and revealing study of a man who, as Taylor puts it, was one of ‘multiple genius’ and ‘one of the most exasperating figures of history.’

Praise for Winston Churchill: An Informal Study of Greatness

‘Tremendously entertaining reading’ - Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Robert Lewis Taylor

“Fields makes all the modern beats look like little Lord Fauntleroys He was a supreme artist and a supreme individual and Taylor does him full justice.” - Harry Golden

“Robert Lewis Taylor has written a hilarious history of the fabulous comedian, written it with understanding, sympathy and a gay respect for the scandalous facts involved.” - The New York Times

“It brings its subject vividly, unforgettably back to life.” - The Washington Post

‘A prolific and witty writer’ – New York Times

Robert Lewis Taylor (1912-1998) was born in southern Illinois and educated at Southern Illinois University and the University of Illinois. Upon graduation, he lived in Europe and in Polynesia; then, after a brief interlude as editor of a weekly newspaper, became a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. In 1940 he joined The New Yorker magazine as a writer of profiles and other long pieces, and remained a member of the staff. Mr. Taylor is author of the-Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Travels of Jamie McPheeters. Taylor also wrote the biography W. C. Fields: His Follies and Fortunes.