#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake delivers
an intimate chronicle of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz—an inspiring portrait of
courage and leadership in a time of unprecedented crisis One of [Erik Larson’s] best books yet
. . . perfectly timed for the moment.”—Time • A bravura performance by one of America’s
greatest storytellers.”—NPR NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book
Review • Time • Vogue • NPR • The Washington Post • Chicago Tribune • The Globe & Mail •
Fortune • Bloomberg • New York Post • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews •
LibraryReads • PopMattersOn Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister Adolf Hitler
invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen and the Dunkirk
evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months Hitler would wage a relentless
bombing campaign killing 45 000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together
and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally—and willing to fight
to the end. In The Splendid and the Vile Erik Larson shows in cinematic detail how Churchill
taught the British people the art of being fearless.” It is a story of political brinkmanship
but it’s also an intimate domestic drama set against the backdrop of Churchill’s
prime-ministerial country home Chequers his wartime retreat Ditchley where he and his
entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest and of course 10
Downing Street in London. Drawing on diaries original archival documents and once-secret
intelligence reports—some released only recently—Larson provides a new lens on London’s darkest
year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family: his wife Clementine their
youngest daughter Mary who chafes against her parents’ wartime protectiveness their son
Randolph and his beautiful unhappy wife Pamela Pamela’s illicit lover a dashing American
emissary and the advisers in Churchill’s Secret Circle ” to whom he turns in the hardest
moments. The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today’s political dysfunction and back
to a time of true leadership when in the face of unrelenting horror Churchill’s eloquence
courage and perseverance bound a country and a family together.
