Description
The first edition of Recollections of Full Years, by Helen Taft, in the publisher’s exceptionally scarce dust jacket. The first memoirs of a first lady.
Octavo, x, [6], 395pp. Red cloth, title in gilt on spine and front panel. Front endpaper cracking, solid text block. This copy is likely unread. Faint dampstain to rear endpapers. Frontispiece portrait of Nellie Taft, and complete with 47 illustrated plates.
In the publisher’s scarce dust jacket, $3.50 retail price on spine, shelf wear, chipping along edges, bright illustrations. An exceptionally scarce dust jacket, in any condition.
Helen Herron Taft’s “Recollections of Full Years” holds the distinction of being the first memoir authored and published (during her lifetime) by a U.S. First Lady. The idea originated in early 1913 when The Delineator magazine suggested she write articles, an effort which Taft instead handed to her daughter, Helen Taft Manning, and journalist Eleanor Franklin Egan, who together shaped the narrative into a first-person memoir. She ultimately signed the publishing contract on April 20, 1914, securing a $2,000 advance and a 50% cut of the profits. The memoir, with much of its content devoted to her years in the Philippines, was released in late 1914, around the outbreak of World War I. Despite extensive advertising, the book sold modestly (only 2,300 copies in two years), failing to recoup the advance paid to Mrs. Taft.
