The untold story of Winston Churchill's precarious finances.

The untold story of Winston Churchill's precarious finances – and the most original and surprising book about Churchill to emerge for many years.

The popular image of Churchill – grandson of a duke, drinking champagne and smoking a cigar – conjures up a man of wealth and substance. The reality is that Britain's most celebrated 20th-century statesman lived for most of his life on a financial cliff-edge. Only fragments of information about his finances, or their impact on his public life, have previously emerged.

With the help of unprecedented access to Churchill's private records, David Lough creates the first fully researched narrative of Churchill's private finances and business affairs. As he reveals the scale of Churchill's financial risk-taking, combined with an ability to talk or write himself out of the tightest of corners, the links between the private man and public figure become clear.

"The little known and sometime heroic saga of Churchill's struggle to achieve liquidity... [Lough] is a courteous guide, whose knowledge of the arcane world of investment enables him to explain what went wrong and how the Churchills managed to scrape through... a fascinating read'" - The Times

"You can learn a lot about someone from the state of their bank balance, as David Lough discovers in this riveting examination of Churchill's finances" - Daily Mail

"Plenty of eye-opening detail... Churchill buffs and economic historians will find valuable insights in the light Lough sheds upon the man and his times'" - Financial Times

"This excellent and entertaining work is worth reading" - Prospect Magazine

"Tells the tale of Churchill the adventurer and gambler elegantly. And for a financial biography, Mr Lough's is a surprising page-turner" - Economist

"The first book that focuses on his (mainly losing) battle against borrowing... the detail is excellent'" - The Times (2015 Books of the Year)

"Lough has painstakingly trawled the archives... Lough is excellent on Churchill's getting and spending... drawing political inferences from these personal matters'" - Literary Review

"Intriguing... Lough knows where the receipts are buried and reveals them with great relish'" - Oxford Times.

"The eighty pages of reference notes are testimony to David Lough's resourcefulness and persistence in research, exposing the lineaments of this personal story with an ultimately telling impact" - TLS.

"A fascinating and fresh study of the man'" - Spear's Magazine

"The most original and surprising book about Churchill" - The Week

"A remarkable story of flamboyant improvidence" - Daily Mail