HARTFORD, June 2: Historian William Manchester, who brought a novelist's flair to his stirring biographies of such 20th century giants as Winston Churchill, Douglas MacArthur and John F. Kennedy, died on Tuesday of cancer at age 82.

Manchester wrote 18 books, including two novels, but was best known in recent years for his magisterial, multivolume biography of Churchill, "The Last Lion". Two strokes prevented Manchester from completing the much-anticipated third volume, covering most of the World War II years.

Just last month, Paul Reid, a feature writer at The Palm Beach Post, was chosen to help finish the book. "He wrote histories or biographies that just take you right there and illuminate, teach, enlighten and anger," Reid said.

Manchester died in his sleep at his home in Middletown, his daughter Laurie Manchester said. Manchester emerged from a working-class childhood in industrial Massachusetts and battlefield experiences as a Marine Corps sergeant in World War II.

Manchester and JFK became friends in 1946 while both were recovering from war wounds. During the 1950s and the Camelot years, Manchester was a confidant and companion to Kennedy, and a frequent visitor to the family's compound in Hyannisport, Massachusetts.

The friendship helped provide Manchester with material for his breakthrough book _ the 1962 "Portrait of a President," the first of three books he wrote about Kennedy. The shattering experience of the Kennedy assassination the following year led to "The Death of a President," published in 1967. -AP