This superb account of the public and private life of the greatest Englishman of our century makes a rare firsthand contribution to the history of an epoch and to the understanding of a man. Violet Bonham Carter was Churchill's close personal friend for nearly sixty years. Her book focuses on the formative and crucial years from 1906 to 1916 that shaped his political style as well as his philosophy; it contains a vast amount of new material that has never been previously published.