Mornings on Horseback The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt

Mornings on Horsebackis the brilliant biography of the young Theodore Roosevelt. Hailed as "a masterpiece" (John A. Gable,Newsday),it is the winner of theLos Angeles Times1981 Book Prize for Biography and the National Book Award for Biography. Written by David McCullough, the author ofTruman,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", wroteThe 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.

David McCullough is the author of The Johnstown Flood (1968), The Great Bridge (1972), and The Path Between the Seas (1977), all of which received wide critical and popular acclaim, and the last (a book about the Panama Canal) not only won a number of literary prizes, including the National Book Award, but also was a major factor in the consideration of this nation's policy with respect to the Canal.