The Last Lion: Defender of the Realm: 1940 - 1965
by William Manchester and Paul Reid – signed by Paul Reid

“The Manchester books” provided many of us our first deep dive into the life of Winston Churchill. The story behind this third volume in the trilogy is almost as interesting as the book itself.

William Manchester suffered two strokes while working on the third part of his trilogy. After an initial impulse to give up on his project, Manchester asked his friend Paul Reid, a Boston-born journalist, to complete the project. The Defender of the Realm begins shortly after Churchill’s appointment as Prime Minister in 1940 and covers Sir Winston through the war years up until his funeral in 1965. To me, this is the most fascinating period in Churchill’s life. Paul Reid tells the story with a journalist’s appreciation for color and detail.

This final volume in The Last Lion trilogy was published as a collaboration between Manchester and Paul Reid, and it has become an acclaimed entry in the Churchill canon.

When I asked Mr. Reid if he would sign a copy of Defender of the Realm, he was kind enough to return the copy that I sent him with inscription shown below.