The first full-scale biography of John Hay since 1934: From secretary to Abraham Lincoln to secretary of state for Theodore Roosevelt, Hay was an essential American figure for more than half a century. John Taliaferro’s brilliant biography captures the extraordinary life of Hay, one of the most amazing figures in American history, and restores him to his rightful place. Private secretary to Lincoln and secretary of state to Theodore Roosevelt, Hay was both witness and author of many of the most significant chapters in American history—from the birth of the Republican Party, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, to the prelude to World War I. As an ambassador and statesman, he guided many of the country’s major diplomatic initiatives at the turn of the twentieth century: the Open Door with China, the creation of the Panama Canal, and the establishment of America as a world leader. Hay’s friends are a who’s who of the era: Mark Twain, Horace Greeley, Henry Adams, Henry James, and virtually every president, sovereign, author, artist, power broker, and robber baron of the Gilded Age. His peers esteemed him as “a perfectly cut stone” and “the greatest prime minister this republic has ever known.” But for all his poise and polish, he had his secrets. His marriage to one of the wealthiest women in the country did not prevent him from pursuing the Madame X of Washington society, whose other secret suitor was Hay’s best friend, Henry Adams. All the Great Prizes, the first authoritative biography of Hay in eighty years, renders a rich and fascinating portrait of this brilliant American and his many worlds.

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From the author of the forthcoming Building the Great Society (February 2018), an intimate look into Lincoln’s White House and the aftermath of his death, via the lives of his two closest aides In this timely look into Abraham Lincoln’s White House, and the aftermath of his death, noted historian and political advisor Joshua Zeitz presents a fresh perspective on the sixteenth U.S. president—as seen through the eyes of Lincoln’s two closest aides and confidants, John Hay and John Nicolay. Lincoln’s official secretaries, Hay and Nicolay enjoyed more access, witnessed more history, and knew Lincoln better than anyone outside of the president’s immediate family. They were the gatekeepers of Lincoln’s legacy. Drawing on letters, diaries, and memoirs, Lincoln’s Boys is part political drama and part coming-of-age tale—a fascinating story of friendship, politics, war, and the contest over history and remembrance.

John Hay believed that “real history is told in private letters,” and the more than 220 surviving letters and telegrams from his Civil War days prove that to be true, showing Abraham Lincoln in action: “The Tycoon is in fine whack. I have rarely seen him more serene & busy. He is managing this war, the draft, foreign relations, and planning a reconstruction of the Union, all at once. I never knew with what tyrannous authority he rules the Cabinet, till now. The most important things he decides & there is no cavil.” Along with Hay’s personal correspondence, Burlingame includes his surviving official letters. Though lacking the “literary brilliance of [Hay’s] personal letters,” Burlingame explains, “they help flesh out the historical record.” Burlingame also includes some of the letters Hay composed for Lincoln’s signature, including the celebrated letter of condolence to the Widow Bixby. More than an inside glimpse of the Civil War White House, Hay’s surviving correspondence provides a window on the world of nineteenth-century Washington, D.C.

Born into one of America’s wealthiest and most distinguished families, John (“Jock”) Hay Whitney (1904-1982) spent his childhood in an Italian Renaissance town house on New York’s Fifth Avenue, in Westbury, Long Island and Greentree, South Carolina. Groton, the prestigious prep school, transformed the pudgy, awkward, stuttering young boy with a penchant for day-dreaming into an accomplished young man with direction, who went on to study at Yale and Oxford. Jock pursued a life dedicated to leadership, to using his money responsibly and wisely, and to cultivating diverse interests. He brought patrician quality and flair to an incredible array of worlds: to café society as a redoubtable playboy; to sports as a polo player who appeared on the cover of Time and as a stable owner who raced horses on a prodigious scale; to family life as the husband of two of the era’s great beauties, the second being Betsey Cushing Roosevelt, FDR’s favorite daughter-in-law; to Hollywood as the producer, with David O. Selznick, of “Gone With the Wind,” “A Star is Born,” and “Rebecca”; to Broadway as the backer of “Life with Father” and “A Streetcar Named Desire”; to the arts as a collector and as president and trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; to World War II as a volunteer and as a German prisoner of war who made a dramatic escape from a moving train; to politics as an early supporter of Eisenhower and later as a close friend of the President; to diplomacy as ambassador to Great Britain from 1956 to 1961; to education as Yale’s Senior Fellow; to philanthropy as an innovator; to investing as founder, in 1946, of one of the earliest venture-capital firms; and to journalism as the publisher who battled valiantly to save the troubled New York Herald Tribune. “Mr. Kahn covers, apparently in full, the life of Mr. Whitney. It is by writing down the ascertainable that the picture of his personality — an intelligent, concerned man with a talent for bringing together those who are poles apart — emerges... Each sentence, with style and sophistication, pushes forward the narrative with an offering of new information, laced at times with witty comment. There are no unanswered questions... [A] wholly absorbing... story of an unusual life.” — Richard F. Shepard, New York Times “In relating Whitney’s always-interesting story and in setting it in the texture of the times, Kahn writes with awe. In fact, there are times when he is irreverent. That is all to the good, but his Whitney is a thoroughly credible person, a genuinely well-mannered and nice person, who has wanted to do well whatever he started out to accomplish. He’s a delight to meet.” — Alden Whitman, Boston Globe “Kahn’s New Yorker style, richly anecdotal and detailed... does justice to this highly likable millionaire sportsman, diplomat, newspaper publisher, stage and Hollywood angel and Maecenas, who played all these roles with zest and imagination... A delightful tribute to a man who ‘epitomized, in a world of increasing egalitarianism, the vanishing patrician.’” — Publishers Weekly

Now, perhaps, only those enmeshed in 19th-century American history know his name; but when John Hay died in 1905, he was one of the most famous men in the world. And one of the most highly regarded. Abraham Lincoln’s private secretary during the Civil War, thereafter as a popular poet, novelist, newspaper editor, highly esteemed historian and biographer, diplomat, businessman, and secretary of state until his death, Hay enjoyed remarkable success in public and private life. In John Hay, Friend of Giants, Philip McFarland presents both the intimate story of Hay’s relationship with four prominent figures of his age and an insightful history of the United States from the 1850s to the turn of the century. Hay’s life and extraordinary friendships provide a window into the politics, literature, society, and diplomacy of this remarkable era of American expansion.