Franklin D. Roosevelt.
From The Library Of Eleanor Roosevelt
[Roosevelt, Eleanor]. Hatch, Alden. Franklin D. Roosevelt: An Informal Biography. New York: Henry Holt and Company (1947).
8vo.; 28 black and white illustrations; photo of 1946 Shoumatoff portrait of FDR as frontispiece; red cloth stamped in gilt.
First edition. A presentation copy, inscribed, To Mrs. Roosevelt with deep appreciation of her courtesy and help and best wishes in whatever she undertakes. Alden Hatch, Polo Lane Cedarhurst, New York January 7, 1947. Mrs. Roosevelt was not the only person who helped Hatch (1898-1975) write this “informal biography.” He spoke to everyone from Harry Truman, Admiral Leahy, Dr. McIntire, Sam Rosenman, and Steve Early, down to Irwin McDuffie and the various aides and stewards who attended the President in the Map Room, the Oval Office, and his private quarters. The result is a richly detailed narrative that places the reader by Roosevelt’s side in a way that more stately, formal biographies never manage to do. We are not simply told how the President learned of the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939 (through a middle of the night trans-Atlantic call from Bill Bullitt); we are told how Arthur Prettyman’s hand jostled Roosevelt’s shoulder to wake him; we have Cordell Hull’s groggy words from the conversation FDR had with him just after Bullitt’s call; we have Roosevelt donning his sweater and clicking on the radio next to his bed, listening to news reports throughout the pre-dawn hours. Hatch was a master of this kind of you-are-there description, and he employed his talents in some thirty books over the course of his career. He wrote lives of Woodrow Wilson, Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton and Martin Luther King, among many others.
Provenance: The Roosevelt Era, New York: Christie’s, lot 67.
(#5036)
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