#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 • PopMatters On 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.
