Theodore Roosevelt's letters are now accessible in this single-volume compendium of the most revealing of the former president's correspondence.

This unprecedented volume brings together 367 letters written by Theodore Roosevelt between 1881 and 1919. Also included are four speeches, best known by the phrases they introduced into the language: "The Strenuous Life" (1899); "The Big Stick" (1901); "The Man in the Arena" (1910); and "The New Nationalism" (1910).

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) was America's most published president with an incredible output of writing including forty books, over a thousand articles, and countless speeches and letters. Collected here in one volume are examples of Roosevelt’s voluminous writings over a dazzling array of topics. Organized by general categories, readers can sample writings on subjects as varied as the environment, the danger of professional sports; the famous charge of San Juan Hill, and Roosevelt’s passion for literary criticism. From addresses and presidential messages on public policy and national ideals, to biography, to travel writing, to ecological concerns, to writings on hunting, to international politics and history, Roosevelt’s talents and achievements as a writer went far beyond what we now expect of our public leaders. Roosevelt’s legacy as one of the first progressive American politicians, his concerns about environmentalism, his internationalism, and his unflinching belief in the American character and destiny uncannily speak to the issues of our own day and can be found in the pages of this representative and judicious anthology of his work.

Theodore Roosevelt (1857–1919) was the most literary of American Presidents, writing scores of books, including Through the Brazilian Wilderness and African Game Trails. He was also the most active of American writers. In little more than six decades, Roosevelt was, among many of his activities, a rancher, historian, reformer, New York City Police Commissioner, renowned hunter, New York State Governor, conservationist, Vice President of the United States, and 26th President of the United States. What is less known is that Roosevelt was also one of the great epistolary writers, penning more than 100,000 letters. This collection brings together over 1,000 of Roosevelt's most engaging and revealing letters, ones that fully illuminate the private man and the public figure. Herein, Roosevelt corresponds with family, friends, colleagues, and political opponents. He discusses private matters, politics, military strategy, conservation, diplomacy, higher education, women's rights, literature, and football. The list of addresses is formidable, including: Jefferson Davis, Francis Parkman, Frederick Jackson Turner, John Muir, Andrew Carnegie, Jane Addams, Henry Ford, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John J. Pershing, Woodrow Wilson, Rudyard Kipling, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. The Selected Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, superbly edited by H. W. Brands, allows Roosevelt to speak in his own inimitable voice. These letters capture the verve and sheer joy of life that was Roosevelt's signature.

One of the most important women of the 20th Century, Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) was also one of its most prolific letter writers. Yet never before has a selection of her letters to public figures, world leaders, and individuals outside her family been made available to general readers and to historians unable to visit the archives at Hyde Park. It Seems to Me demonstrates Roosevelt's significance as a stateswoman and professional politician, particularly after her husband's death in 1945. These letters reveal a dimension of her personality often lost in collections of letters to family members and friends, that of a shrewd, self-confident woman unafraid to speak her mind. In her letters, Roosevelt lectured Truman, badgered Eisenhower, and critiqued Kennedy. She disagreed with the Catholic Church over aid to parochial schools, made recommendations for political appointments, expressed her opinion on the conviction of Alger Hiss. Some letters demonstrate her commitment to civil rights, many her understanding of Cold War politics, and still others her support of labor unions. As a whole, this collection provides unique insights into both Eleanor Roosevelt's public life, as well as American culture and politics during the decades following World War II.

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE AND THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • One of Modern Library’s 100 best nonfiction books of all time • One of Esquire’s 50 best biographies of all time “A towering biography . . . a brilliant chronicle.”—Time This classic biography is the story of seven men—a naturalist, a writer, a lover, a hunter, a ranchman, a soldier, and a politician—who merged at age forty-two to become the youngest President in history. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt begins at the apex of his international prestige. That was on New Year’s Day, 1907, when TR, who had just won the Nobel Peace Prize, threw open the doors of the White House to the American people and shook 8,150 hands. One visitor remarked afterward, “You go to the White House, you shake hands with Roosevelt and hear him talk—and then you go home to wring the personality out of your clothes.” The rest of this book tells the story of TR’s irresistible rise to power. During the years 1858–1901, Theodore Roosevelt transformed himself from a frail, asthmatic boy into a full-blooded man. Fresh out of Harvard, he simultaneously published a distinguished work of naval history and became the fist-swinging leader of a Republican insurgency in the New York State Assembly. He chased thieves across the Badlands of North Dakota with a copy of Anna Karenina in one hand and a Winchester rifle in the other. Married to his childhood sweetheart in 1886, he became the country squire of Sagamore Hill on Long Island, a flamboyant civil service reformer in Washington, D.C., and a night-stalking police commissioner in New York City. As assistant secretary of the navy, he almost single-handedly brought about the Spanish-American War. After leading “Roosevelt’s Rough Riders” in the famous charge up San Juan Hill, Cuba, he returned home a military hero, and was rewarded with the governorship of New York. In what he called his “spare hours” he fathered six children and wrote fourteen books. By 1901, the man Senator Mark Hanna called “that damned cowboy” was vice president. Seven months later, an assassin’s bullet gave TR the national leadership he had always craved. His is a story so prodigal in its variety, so surprising in its turns of fate, that previous biographers have treated it as a series of haphazard episodes. This book, the only full study of TR’s pre-presidential years, shows that he was an inevitable chief executive. “It was as if he were subconsciously aware that he was a man of many selves,” the author writes, “and set about developing each one in turn, knowing that one day he would be President of all the people.”

This eBook edition of "Selected Letters of Theodore Roosevelt" has been formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. Most of the letters in this book were written by Theodore Roosevelt to his children during a period of more than twenty years. A few others are included which he wrote to friends or relatives about the children. He began to write to them in their early childhood, and continued to do so regularly till they reached maturity. Whenever he was separated from them, in the Spanish War, or on a hunting trip, or because they were at school, he sent them these messages of constant thought and love, for they were never for a moment out of his mind and heart. Long before they were able to read he sent them what they called "picture letters," with crude drawings of his own illustrations of the written text, drawings precisely adapted to the childish imagination and intelligence. That the little recipients cherished these delightful missives is shown by the tender care with which they preserved them from destruction. They are in good condition after many years of loving usage. A few of them are reproduced on these pages—written at different periods as each new child appeared in the household.

“A splendid piece of work.” — Edmund Morris In a unique project, author Daniel Ruddy has carefully extracted Teddy Roosevelt’s most relevant and telling comments—from letters, books, speeches, and other sources—and organized them to form a fairly full, always colorful, and highly opinionated history of the United States up to 1919 (the year TR died). With a preface by Theodore Rex author Edmund Morris.