The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER: The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake author provides an intimate account of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz, painting an uplifting picture of bravery and fortitude in the face of an unparalleled disaster.

Adolf Hitler attacked Belgium and Holland on the first day Winston Churchill took office as prime minister. After the surrender of Poland and Czechoslovakia, the evacuation from Dunkirk was just two weeks away. Hitler would launch a relentless bombing campaign that would murder 45,000 Britons over the course of the next 12 months. Churchill had to keep his nation together and convince President Franklin D. Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy partner that would fight to the very end.

Erik Larson depicts in The Splendid and the Vile, in vivid detail, how Churchill imparted "the art of being fearless" to the British people. Set against the backdrop of Churchill's 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, the story revolves around political brinkmanship but is also an intimate domestic drama. By examining the day-to-day experiences of Churchill and his family—his wife, Clementine; their youngest daughter, Mary, who resents her parents' wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful but 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 darkest moments—Larson offers a fresh perspective on London's darkest year.

The Splendid and the Vile transports readers from the dysfunction of modern politics to a period of genuine leadership, when Churchill's eloquence, bravery, and tenacity kept a nation and its people together in the face of unending tragedy.