Before he began "Richard Carvel," and also while it was on the stocks, he visited Virginia and Maryland, and studied the country and the old records with great thoroughness. He also read a vast amount of history and other literature which gave the spirit of the period. During the seven or eight months in '98 and '99, when he was writing the book from beginning to end for the fifth time, he was living on the Hudson, about thirty miles from New York. During those months he worked from breakfast to one o'clock, then for some hours after luncheon. Late in the afternoon he would take a long horseback ride, and after dinner he would go at his work again, continuing sometimes far into the night. In the midst of his work on "Richard Carvel," while he was staying at Lake George, he ran out of historical material, and wrote "The Celebrity." This novel was the subject of a great deal of comment on its first appearance in 1897, and many people still regard it as the brightest and most amusing and original piece of work which Mr. Churchill has done. After finishing his work on "Richard Carvel," Mr. Churchill, in the spring of 1899, went to live at Cornish, N. H., where he had purchased a large farm on high ground on the banks of the Connecticut, just opposite Windsor, Vt. On the estate which he had bought Mr. Churchill then built Harlakenden House, which is modelled upon one of the mansions of Colonial Maryland. In 1913 Harlakenden House was selected by President Woodrow Wilson as his summer residence. It was here that news of the great success of "Richard Carvel" came to Mr. Churchill. The novel immediately became the most popular book in the United States, and was more widely read and discussed during its first year than has been the case with any other book ever published. "Richard Carvel" contains the great historical figures of Charles James Fox and John Paul Jones. Perhaps the most thrilling and vividly written passage in the book is that which describes the memorable battle between the Bon Homme Richard and the Serapis. It was this that was accountable for the revival of interest in John Paul Jones and led to the finding of his burial place in France and to several biographies written largely under the stimulus of his character and personality as graphically revealed in "Richard Carvel." Two or three years later "The Crisis" appeared. This time Mr. Churchill chose for his background the stirring days of the Civil War, through some of its most thrilling events his hero passes. He incidently painted supremely good pictures of Lincoln and Grant, showing how they grew out of the conditions that produced the crisis, and how they dominated it and brought it to such an issue that the country became better, greater and stronger for the cataclysm that had threatened to disrupt it. Like "Richard Carvel," "The Crisis" was dramatized, and opened its successful run on the stage a few months after the book's publication.