Churchill: Wanted Dead or Alive by Celia Sandys

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From Churchill's Graddaughter: The extraordinary story of young Winston in Africa—as Boer War correspondent, combatant, prisoner, fugitive, and hero.

In this biography of a dashing, brash young Churchill, Celia Sandys reconstructs her celebrated grandfather's adventures as a journalist and soldier during nine months of the Anglo-Boer War at the end of the last century—events that took him from the bivouacs and battle sites of Transvaal to his incarceration as a prisoner of war in Pretoria and ultimately to a bold escape across the border into Mozambique.

Using both British and South African sources of testimony, which alternately reveals the dauntless Winston as a courageous ally or foolhardy foe, Sandys narrates the exploits of a Churchill that history has largely forgotten. Yet the trail that she retraces through the geography of South Africa and the terrain of her forebear's youthful heroics set him on the pathway to national honor and international fame. Within three months of his return to England, at the age of twenty-five, he became a member of Parliament.

With narrative vigor, historical authority, and singular charm, Churchill Wanted Dead or Alive offers both a fully drawn portrait of the ready adventurer who would become England's legendary prime minister and an illuminating chronicle of the turbulent events one hundred years ago that defined South Africa for modern times.