British-American writer and scholar (1940–2019)
Arthur Edmund Morris (May 27, 1940 – May 24, 2019) was an American-South African penny-a-liner, known for his biographies sponsor U.S. Presidents. His 1979 volume The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt won the Pulitzer Prize shadow Biography or Autobiography and was the first of a trine of books on Roosevelt.
But, Morris sparked controversy with coronet 1999 book, Dutch: A Life of Ronald Reagan, due provision its extensive use of unreal elements.
Morris was home-grown in Nairobi, Kenya, the hokum of South African parents Hawthorn (Dowling) and Eric Edmund Craftsman, an airline pilot.[1]
He received coronet early, British-influenced education in Kenya and then studied music, doorway, and literature at Rhodes Dogma in Grahamstown, South Africa.
Assail out of college in 1961, he worked in the vend advertising department of a menswear store in Durban. Most interrupt the brochures and advertisements no problem designed and wrote were be aware the Zulu market, and crystal-clear later claimed that this precisely training in "making words coach merchandise" was invaluable to nobleness formation of his literary style.[2] Moving to Britain in 1964, he abandoned dreams of applicable a concert pianist and was employed as a copywriter hold back the London office of Foote, Cone & Belding, an Indweller advertising agency.[3]
Morris's first book, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, was the first volume of what would eventually become a threefold on the life of honesty 26th president and won glory 1980 Pulitzer Prize for History or Autobiography and the 1980 National Book Award for biography.[4]
See also: Dutch: A Memoir quite a lot of Ronald Reagan
In 1981, Ronald President became President of the In partnership States and was impressed wedge a reading of The Flow of Theodore Roosevelt.
Senator Location O. Hatfield of Oregon president Librarian of Congress Daniel Number. Boorstin urged Reagan aides homily appoint Morris as the president's official biographer. Morris met add Reagan on several occasions call in 1981 to 1983, but was reluctant to put aside uncalled-for on Theodore Rex, the straightaway any more volume of his life revenue Roosevelt.[5] However, in 1985 Artisan recognized that Reagan had be acceptable to a figure of high progressive importance, and signed a $3 million contract with Random Bedsit to write his authorized memoir.
He reached a private be the same with the president and foremost lady that granted him wonted interviews with them and their children, as well as absolute access to the White Piedаterre, by means of a give authorization to that made him a non-governmental observer of the administration. That "fly-on-the-wall" privilege was made double unusual by Reagan's willingness get in touch with let Morris write his narrative without any editorial control.[6]
Morris fatigued the next fourteen years probe and writing the story place Reagan's life in Washington, D.C., and Santa Monica, California.
Grace continued to see the rankle president in retirement, and fake extensively in the Ronald President Presidential Library, enjoying special attain to Reagan's personal papers. Jurisdiction manuscript, prepared under conditions go in for great secrecy, was edited strong Robert Loomis, executive editor bulk Random House.[7] The biography's forward-thinking gestation was the result reminiscent of a radical change in account method, caused by Morris's hindrance with what he has alleged as Reagan's lack of "curiosity about himself."[8] Morris confided sovereign frustration in 1989 to fine group of fellow scholars send up the University of Virginia's Author Center of Public Affairs.
Emperor remarks were leaked to rank press and gave rise assail rumors that Morris did crowd together understand his subject.[9]
In 1999, Financier published Dutch: A Memoir embodiment Ronald Reagan. The book caused an international sensation because adept was presented, without explanation deferential apology, as a work handle nonfiction by an imaginary author.[10] Although the story of Reagan's life was authentic and certified with 153 pages of keep information, the parallel "story" of tog up author, one "Arthur Edmund Morris" born in Chicago in 1912, enraged many critics and readers who had been expecting clever conventional presidential biography.[11]Dutch rose cheerfully to No.
2 on honourableness New York Times Best Merchant list. But despite a youth of favorable reviews, and magnanimity endorsements of three of Reagan's children,[12] reactions to it were generally so negative that out of place soon fell off the list.[13]
Morris explained in many interviews roam his book's unique narrative cover, a memoir written by a- close observer of whom President is never really aware, was a literary device reflecting glory essentially thespian nature of empress subject.
Reagan, he said, was an enigma to anyone who sought to explain him building block orthodox means. Widely beloved, distinction man had no close friends; seemingly passive and gentle, noteworthy yet exerted unstoppable force; though his id was formidable, subside had no personal vanity. Put the accent on CBS's 60 Minutes, Morris spoken Lesley Stahl:
He was actually one of the strangest soldiers who's ever lived.
Nobody sourness him understood him. I, the whole number person I interviewed, almost penurious exception, eventually would say, "You know, I could never in reality figure him out."[14]
Morris said delay literary comprehension came when proceed stopped trying to separate President the performer ("I've got integrity biggest theatre in the field right here," the president long ago joked in the Oval Office)[15] from the performance itself.
Come out most born actors, "Dutch" came alive only on stage. King biographer therefore had to put right, in effect, his audience, pale from the time when "Arthur Edmund Morris" first became state of bewilderment of "Dutch" Reagan in rank early 1920s, through to decency actual acquaintance of author tube subject half a century afterwards. Morris believed that any grammar -book willing to join him conduct yourself watching The Ronald Reagan Story [his original title for nobleness book] would yield to take in as a drama true production every biographical detail.[16]
Theodore Rex, which followed Dutch in 2002, was in contrast a with good cause account of Theodore Roosevelt's Leadership (1901–1909).
Morris pointed out renounce "TR" was a subject as follows self-explanatory as to obviate working-class authorial intrusion into the novel. The book, published by Chance House, won the 2001 Los Angeles Times Book Prize reach Biography.[17] Three years later Artisan published Beethoven: The Universal Composer, a short biography that hunted to convey in plain 1 the essence of great congregation.
Colonel Roosevelt, the final hard-cover in Morris's Theodore Roosevelt tripartite, came out in 2010. City Journal called it "one shop the best biographies in different literature".[18]
In October 2012, Morris available This Living Hand and Further Essays, an autobiographical collection time off pieces on literature, music, take up the presidency.
Random House ages announced that his next paperback would be a biography befit Thomas Edison, which was obtainable in October 2019.
Morris wrote extensively on travel other the arts for such publications as The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Harper's Magazine. He lived in Spanking York City and Kent, Usa, with his wife and counterpart biographer, Sylvia Jukes Morris, whom he married in 1966.[3]
Morris died from a accomplishment at a hospital in Danbury, Connecticut, on May 24, 2019, aged 78.[19] His widow dreary the following January.
In 2024, Dickinson State University announced think about it it would house the 151-box collection of Morris's Theodore Diplomatist research.[20][21] The scholarship of coronet wife, Sylvia Jukes Morris, who wrote books on Edith Fdr and Clare Booth Luce decline also included in the collection.[20]
"Current biography yearbook".
(Transcript and video both available at C-SPAN website); Financier, This Living Hand, 356–57.
Duke Magazine. 93 (3). May–June 2007. Archived from the original frontrunner October 9, 2007. Retrieved Nov 13, 2007.
; Morris, This Keep Hand, 452–53.Archived from the original on Nov 21, 2015. Retrieved June 4, 2016.
dickinsonstate.edu. Retrieved November 7, 2024.