Edith Kermit Roosevelt; Portrait of a First Lady

24 cm. [10], 581, [1] pages. Frontis Illustration. Illustrations. Bibliography. Notes. Index. Pencil erasure on front endpaper, wear at top of DJ spine, DJ somewhat soiled. Sylvia Jukes Morris is a British-born biographer, based in the United States. She is married to writer Edmund Morris. Morris's articles and reviews have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Travel & Leisure, and The Washington Post. She has served as a judge for the National Book Awards and lectured at the Library of Congress, the National Portrait Gallery and the Newseum of Washington, D.C., as well as the New York Society Library, the Chicago Humanities Festival, the Miami Book Fair, and the University of Delaware. Her television credits include appearances on The American Experience, C-SPAN, the History Channel and a transatlantic literary symposium presented by the Paris Review and the English-Speaking Union. Derived from a Kirkus review: FDR saluted her for cleverly managing his Uncle Ted. Intellectual, fervent, intimidating, serene, Edith Kermit Roosevelt is very much worth reading about. The complex character of Edith Roosevelt remains an enigma. She and TR were the closest and fondest of childhood chums. They met by momentous accident; and within weeks they were engaged--launching what must stand as one of the most ardent, closely attuned matches in White House history. Shortly after moving into the White House, she proceeded to do over the White House; to assemble the known sets of presidential china, engage the first Social Secretary, entertain with unprecedented elan (Henry Adams, John La Farge, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and Henry James were guests at one memorable lunch). . . all the while savoring the escapades of son Kermit's madcap "White House Gang" and remaining, to the last, TR's "Darling Edie." Details galore. …