Edmund Morris, Reagan Biographer Who Upset Conventions, Dies at 79

NYT ^ | 5/27/2019 | David Stout

[Borges]

Edmund Morris, who wrote an acclaimed biography of Theodore Roosevelt but is best known for his life of Ronald Reagan, in which the author inserted himself as a fictional narrator, a device that baffled and angered some historians, died on Friday in Danbury, Conn. He was 78.

His death, at a hospital following a stroke on Thursday, was confirmed on Monday by his wife, the author Sylvia Jukes Morris. He lived in Kent, Conn.

Mr. Morris’s “The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt” won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award in 1980. He followed that with two other well-received books on the 26th president, “Theodore Rex” (2001) and “Colonel Roosevelt” (2010).

[Dr. Sivana]

I don’t think I’d have liked his Reagan biography. I get the sense he didn’t understand the man. “Theodore Rex”, however, was quite good.

[rockinqsranch]

I hate the New York Times. Just read the article about a third of the way through to feel the hatred yourselves.

[KC Burke]

fyi in case you get a call to comment == heads up

[Tax-chick]

I read “The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt.”

[billorites]

Huh.

Sorry to learn that. I was in general agreement with what he was trying to do with his Reagan biography.

[Fiji Hill]

\
Reagan chose Edmund Morris as his official biographer—not one of his better appointments. He should have chosen someone like Lee Edwards, who had written an earlier biography of him.

[LS]

If you can’t say something nice . . .

I’d talk about what a fantastic job he did on TR.

[LS]

You should probably look at “Reagan: The American President.”

I think you’ll find I understand RR perfectly.

[LS]

Or probably better yet, yours truly.

I humbly submit my “Reagan: The American President,” written without “insider access,” beats them all-—cuz I had access of a different sort that even Edwards didn’t have: Reagan’s papers.

[robowombat]

Morris realized after he worked on the Reagan biography he was not dealing with a lightweight and sap the way all his literati friends had convinced him. So his choice was t produce a several volume work akin to his Theodore Roosevelt bio which would show just how important and successful RR was as a leader and political figure. If he did that he would become persona non-grata in the NE Establishment and be denigrated, demeaned and have his career destroyed. Or he could do something else. So he opted to do the something else which was to produce a ridiculous mock biography entitles ‘Dutch’ in which a faux Reagan he called only ‘Dutch’ wondered about for hundreds of pages. Absolutely the weirdest and most worthless supposed bio ever written of a president. But Morris escaped with his career intact. That alone tells a lot about the NE Establishment.

[Fiji Hill]

I humbly submit my “Reagan: The American President,” written without “insider access,” beats them all-—cuz I had access of a different sort that even Edwards didn’t have: Reagan’s papers.

I own some of your books and would wholeheartedly agree.

One recent biography I would treat with caution is Reagan: An American Journey by Bob Spitz (New York: Penguin, 2018). As I listened to the audiobook version, I found the research to be occasionally sloppy--for example, Reagan's receiving "CARE packages" in college in the 1920's although CARE (Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe) wasn't founded until 1945. The author's liberal bias also permeated the book. I decided to return it to the library before I was even half way through and in its place, I checked out Paul Johnson's classic Modern Times--which I just finished.

[Sans-Culotte]

Read all three of the TR books. Great writing.

[hinckley buzzard]

Morris approached Reagan with a posture of condescending arrogance. He called Reagan “an amiable dunce” but later admitted he totally was unable to come to understand the Man. That is why he used a phoney and mendacious artifice in his so-called biography.

I read it, it sucks. RIP, Morris you loser.

[fieldmarshaldj]

RIP.