"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.
