Description
The first edition of The Man From Missouri: The Life and Times of Harry S. Truman by Alfred Steinberg, inscribed by President Harry S. Truman.
Octavo, 447pp, [1]. Blue cloth, title stamped in gilt. The first printing, with no additional printings noted. Wear to cloth spine, rubbing to gilt print, spine reinforced with archival repair. New endpapers. Ownership inscription on the front free endpaper. In the publisher’s first state dust jacket, $6.50 on the front flap, light sunning to the spine, wear from handling at top of spine, a near fine example. (Burns, 0015)
Inscribed on the half-title: “To Mr. + Mrs. Ronald Kitchen / Kindest regards / Harry Truman 6-6-63 / This book is most inaccurate as to facts. Take it with two grains of salt!”
This is one of two known examples of “The Man From Missouri” signed by President Truman, with both inscriptions noting his displeasure with the book, calling it “a pot boiler, only half accurate.”
In Truman’s personal copy, held at the Truman Library, he wrote unflattering notes in the margins, such as: “Never Happened,” “Another big lie!” In a letter to Dean Acheson in 1962 regarding this biography, Truman wrote: “You know [Dean], better than anyone, how hard I worked to meet the decisions it was necessary to make. Now, articles are coming [sic] out, along with books, showing I could never make a decision unless some smart boy told me how to make it. That may have happened – but I didn’t know it.”
