Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 November 1901 — AUTHOR OF RICHARD CARVEL [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AUTHOR OF RICHARD CARVEL

Story of the Youngs Man Who Hu Written the Book of the Year.

BY SEWELL FORD

A young man of 27 who has written what may be called “the book of the year” Is certainly a personage of public Interest. Such Is Winston Churchill, author of “Richard Carvel.” The writer of this truly American novel which Is being so widely read and talked about Is new to literature. He has produced but one previous book and that of rather a light nature. But “Richard Carvel” has boosted him well up among the popular native novelists, and his fortune, if not his lasting fame, is already assured. Mr. Churchill comes of old Puritan stock. He Is descended on his father's side from John Churchill, who settled at Plymouth, Mass., in 1641, and on his mother’s side both from John Dwight, the founder of Dedham, Mass., and from Jonathan Edwards. Thus he is derived from good English stock long resident upon the soil, and this good blood has, moreover, proved sensitive to the fluid influences of American life. The original families scattered, of course, and Mr. Churchill’s Immediate relatives found their way to St. Louis, where he was born in 1871. From Smith academy In that city he went to the Naval academy at Annapolis. Before his graduation he had , made up his mind that he did not want to spend his life in the bavy, that his abilities lay in the line of writing and that fiction was his vocation. After working on The Ariby and Navy Journal he joined the staff of The Cosmopolitan and lived at Irving-ton-on-the-Hudson, working steadily on the magazine, but not continuing his experiments In Action. He never tried to get any of his first work published, and It is not now in existence, so that he is In the rare position of a novelist who has scored a great success without having any early sins to rise up and accuse him. While he was living at Irvington he married a wealthy young lady from

bis native city. He was no longer obliged to spend his life doing hack work, but he united with his rare good fortune much rarer good sense. He was ambitious not only to write good stories, but to write the very best books of which he was capable—to do something really worth while. While he was living in St. Louis, after leaving The. Cosmopolitan, he hired a room in an office building and went down to It and ground away as regularly as If he had had a set of books to keep instead of a novel to write. He went to Virginia and Maryland and studied up the country and the old records with great thoroughness, and he also read a vast amount of history aud other literature which gave the spirit of the period, both before he began “Richard Carvel” and while It was on the stocks. Last winter, from October to April, when he was writing the book from beginning to end for the fifth time, he was living on the Hudson about 30 miles from New York. During those months he went to the city only five times. He worked from breakfast to 1 o’clock, then for some hours after luncheon. Late in the afternoon he took a long horseback ride, and after dinner he went at his work again, keeping It up until very late. After finishing his work In connection with “Richard Carvel” last spring Mr. Churchill, with his wife and child, went up to the beautiful little village of Cornish, N. H., where he hag purchased a large farm on high ground on the banks of the Connecticut, just opposite Windsor, Vt. The estate lies In a beautiful situation, partly surrounded by mountains. There he Is now at work on another novel. He has built for himself a little writing den, not in the attic or in some

remote corner or me nouse, Dut out in the Helds. Into this he retires at regular intervals aud grinds away. He says he does hot intend to be hurried lu his work aud means to take just as much pains with this book as with his first successful novel. Mr. Churchill is a tall, athletic looking young man of 27, with very broad shoulders, black hair and brown eyes; alive to his finger tip@ and manly through and through, with neither false pride nor false modesty, but with a certain grace and a delicacy of perception of which one gradually becomes aware. He Is frank, genuine, companionable and straightforward.

WINSTON CHURCHILL.