Fun Facts Friday: Edmund Morris

Edmund Morris (27 May 1940 – 24 May 2019) was an American Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, known for his biographies of Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. I read his biography of Edison, which I enjoyed very much.

Books by Edmund Morris*

Fun Facts about Edmund Morris:

1. Arthur Edmund Morris was born in Nairobi, Kenya. His parents May and Eric were South African.
2. Morris dropped out of college and found a job in advertising designing ads and brochures for menswear. He credits this job with forming his literary style.
3. Morris dreamed of being a concert pianist, but abandoned that dream in 1964, moving to London, England to work as a copywriter for an American ad agency.
4. In 1968, two after marrying Sylvia Jukes, an English teacher, and writer by her own right and in time his fellow biographer, the couple emigrated to the United States.
5. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Edmund Morris’ first book which will eventually be the first of a trilogy, won the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for Biography and Autobiography, as well as the 1980 National Book Award for biography.
6. The aids for President Ronald Reagan thought that Mr. Morris would be ideal to write the President’s autobiography.
7. Morris received a seven figured contract from Random House, and even better, he got access to a sitting president and his family.
   A historian’s dream come true.
8. The book, Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan, enraged many people because Mr. Morris inserted himself as a fictional narrator who guides the readers through Reagan’s childhood and rise to the presidency. In fact, Nancy Reagan refused to meet with him during a signing at the Reagan Library.
9. Edmund Morris also wrote articles about travel and the arts for magazines, such as The New Yorker, New York Times, and Harper’s Magazine.
10. Morris’ trilogy about Theodore Roosevelt: The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Rex, and Colonel Roosevelt is considered the definitive study of the President.

Books by Edmund Morris*

Zohar — Man of la Book
*Ama­zon links point to an affil­i­ate account, the money is usually spent on books