A Prelude to Immortality

“This fascinating biography of a biography essentially explains to the reader how Winston Churchill’s thought processes worked when he wrote My Early Life, one of the books that deservedly won him the Nobel Prize for Literature. A vital part of the Churchill myth as well as being a beautiful piece of writing in itself, My Early Life has always been something of an enigma – until now.” – Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny “A superb study of Churchill the writer. Meticulously researched, highly readable, and offering unique insights into his life, ambitions and character.” – Katherine Carter, Author, Historian and Curator at Chartwell “This is a well-crafted and lavishly illustrated deep dive into Churchill’s most revealing book; illuminating how and why he wrote it and showing how it was received by his contemporaries and later historians.” – Allen Packwood OBE, Director, Churchill Archive Centre, Cambridge University “Color coded, profusely illustrated, citations, appendices, and a wealth of information all thoroughly indexed! Stiles has produced an encyclopedic study of Winston Churchill’s most beloved book. From brief biographies of everyone mentioned in the text to a record of every language in which My Early Life has been published, A Prelude to Immortality immediately becomes a classic study of a classic book.” – David Freeman, editor for the International Churchill Society “Most of what is written about Churchill just tells us who he was and what he did. Stiles shows us how and why Churchill became who he was. In Stiles’ hands, Churchill’s single most popular work not only entertains the reader, as it has done for nearly a century since it was first published, but now illuminates its author as never before. Stiles brilliantly uses Churchill’s own – and only – retrospective on his origins as a kind of skeleton key to access Churchill’s voice and vitality, his animating attitudes and ambitions. A true sense of Churchill ramifies and resonates in these pages. Not only has this never been done before, but it is hard to imagine it being done better. A Prelude to Immortality is silver-tongued scholarship – part rigorous analysis, part reference compendium, all held within a gripping narrative.” – Marc Kuritz, Proprietor, Churchill Book Collector