Review
John Leonard The New York Times We have no better social historian.


Book Description
Mornings on Horseback is the brilliant biography of the young Theodore Roosevelt. Hailed as "a masterpiece" (John A. Gable, Newsday), it is the winner of the Los Angeles Times 1981 Book Prize for Biography and the National Book Award for Biography. Written by David McCullough, the author of Truman, this is the story of a remarkable little boy, seriously handicapped by recurrent and almost fatal asthma attacks, and his struggle to manhood: an amazing metamorphosis seen in the context of the very uncommon household in which he was raised. The father is the first Theodore Roosevelt, a figure of unbounded energy, enormously attractive and selfless, a god in the eyes of his small, frail namesake. The mother, Mittie Bulloch Roosevelt, is a Southerner and a celebrated beauty, but also considerably more, which the book makes clear as never before. There are sisters Anna and Corinne, brother Elliott (who becomes the father of Eleanor Roosevelt), and the lovely, tragic Alice Lee, TR's first love. All are brought to life to make "a beautifully told story, filled with fresh detail", wrote The New York Times Book Review. A book to be read on many levels, it is at once an enthralling story, a brilliant social history and a work of important scholarship which does away with several old myths and breaks entirely new ground. It is a book about life intensely lived, about family love and loyalty, about grief and courage, about "blessed" mornings on horseback beneath the wide blue skies of the Badlands.


About the Author
David McCullough is the author of The Johnstown Flood (1968), The Great Bridge (1972), and The Path Between the Seas (1977), all of which received wide critical and popular acclaim, and the last (a book about the Panama Canal) not only won a number of literary prizes, including the National Book Award, but also was a major factor in the consideration of this nation's policy with respect to the Canal.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Mornings on Horseback is the authoritative biography of the young Theodore Roosevelt. Written by David McCullough, the author of presidential biographies Truman and John Adams, this is the story of a remarkable little boy, seriously handicapped by recurrent and almost fatal asthma attacks, and his struggle to manhood: an amazing metamorphosis seen in the context of the very uncommon household in which he was raised.

His father was the first Theodore Roosevelt, a figure of unbounded energy, enormously attractive and selfless, a god in the eyes of his small, frail namesake. His mother, Mittie Bulloch Roosevelt, was a Southerner and a celebrated beauty but also considerably more, which the book makes clear as never before. There were sisters Anna and Corinne, brother Elliott (who becomes the father of Eleanor Roosevelt), and the lovely, tragic Alice Lee, TR's first love. And while Abraham Lincoln, Mrs. John Jacob Astor, and Senator Roscoe Conkling play a part, it is the diverse and deeply human Roosevelt family, all brought vividly to life, which give this book its remarkable power.

Mornings on Horseback spans seventeen years-from 1869 when little "Teedie" is ten, to 1886 when, as a hardened "real life cowboy," he returns from the West to pick up the pieces of a shattered life and begin anew as a grown man, whole in body and spirit. It is a book about life intensely lived, about family love and loyalty, about grief and courage, about "blessed" mornings on horseback beneath the wide blue skies of the Badlands. It is at once an enthralling story, a brilliant social history, and a work of important scholarship that does away with several old myths and breaks new ground.

FROM THE CRITICS

John Leonard - The New York Times