Morris…paints a vivid picture…This well-researched, exhaustive biography reads like a novel, with fleshed-out characters ranging from William Randolph Hearst to John Gardarino, a penniless newsboy. It is the story of a man, but also of a time…
In this thorough, elegantly-written volume, biographer Morris (author of The Rose Man of Sing Sing, editor of Biographer's Craft magazine) explores the life of infamous media mogul Joseph Pulitzer, best known today for the journalism prize that bears his name. Pulitzer's story begins with the large Hungarian family of his mid-19th century youth, struck by monetary misfortune and the unexpected deaths of his father and some of his many siblings. Traveling to America in 1864, Pulitzer fought in the civil war before he settled in St. Louis, where he began his journey from newspaper reporter to politician to media baron. Morris goes into great detail regarding the events of Pulitzer's life and times, but also captures Pulitzer's character: hard-working, independent, and pursued by demons likely tied to his rough beginnings. Morris also notes Pulitzer's few, curiously strong attachments to his mother, wife, and an ambiguously sexual philosopher-mentor named Thomas Davidson. From the kill-or-be-killed ethos of his early journalistic and political career to his late-in-life preference for extreme solitude, Pulitzer proves a captivating figure, and Morris's handling superb. B&W photos
Morris (The Rose Man of Sing Sing) presents a colorful and critical account of the life of Joseph Pulitzer (1847–1911) and Pulitzer's transformative use of the press in his battles for reform. One of the first practitioners of "yellow journalism," which emphasized scandals, crime, and human interest stories (coupled with accurate investigative reporting in Pulitzer's two successive newspapers), Pulitzer deftly appealed to the demographic of a growing immigrant and female newspaper readership. Toward the end of his career, with failing eyesight and near-constant ailments (covered in perhaps too much detail), Pulitzer combated "upstart imitator" William Randolph Hearst—the two respected each other—as well as politicians William Jennings Bryan and Theodore Roosevelt, whom he regarded as demagogues. The first major Pulitzer biography by a scholar of journalism since W.A. Swanberg's Pulitzer over 40 years ago, this book offers new insights derived in part from previously unpublished sources from Pulitzer's brother and wife (to her lover), both providing enriched context for Pulitzer's often turbulent family life. VERDICT With a breezy prose style and expository endnotes taking earlier secondary sources to account, this is highly recommended for both casual readers and students of the history of American journalism between the Civil War and World War I.—Frederick J. Augustyn Jr., Library of Congress
The spectacular rise of Joseph Pulitzer (1847-1911), from his humble origins as the son of a Jewish merchant in Hungary to his position as the most powerful journalist and publisher in the world. Biographer's Craft editor Morris (The Rose Man of Sing Sing, 2003) begins, uncharacteristically, with a kind of Biography 101 maneuver. In 1909, the virtually blind Pulitzer is aboard his luxurious yacht while a teeth-gnashing Theodore Roosevelt, enraged at Pulitzer's continuous hostile coverage, has forced the Justice Department to convene grand juries to investigate his tormenter. Then the author swoops back to 1847 and makes readers wait 450 pages to find out what happened. Despite this organizational annoyance, Morris offers a substantial, balanced biography of a complicated, mesmerizing figure who embodied both the American Dream and the American Nightmare. After emigrating to the United States during the Civil War-he served with the Union cavalry but saw little action-Pulitzer struggled through penury and depression. However, his ferocious ambition to excel and prosper sent him to the Mercantile Library in St. Louis, where he studied and learned English and began his career as a reporter on a German-language newspaper. He brawled and worked his way into increasingly responsible positions, served a bit in public office and bought the struggling St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Itching for more exposure, Pulitzer moved to New York City, where he took over the struggling New York World and converted it into a powerhouse. He eventually used his millions to endow the Columbia School of Journalism, the Missouri School of Journalism and the eponymous prizes. Morris ably depicts a volatile, irascible,impulsive, unscrupulous man who betrayed and subverted his brother, verbally abused his wife and children, preached democracy, practiced autocracy and believed fervently that he was never wrong. A Horatio Alger tale shaded with Shakespearean darkness.
A major biographical success . . . . A thrilling toboggan-ride tour of history. . . . Pulitzer presents a flood of diary entries, statistics, edotirals, memoranda, and cables from its subject’s many ocean voyages. In this cavalcade of American life and letters, the pages fly by.” — The San Francisco Chronicle
“An accomplished new biography. . . . Pulitzer is not its subject’s first biography. But it is by far the best at explaining Pulitzer’s St. Louis years.” — The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“an attractive, superbly illustrated, and gracefully written account of his subject that might well catch the attention of the Pulitzer Prize trustees.” — The Washington Times
“James McGrath Morris has given us everything we could have asked for in his new biography of Joseph Pulitzer. Gracefully written and thoroughly researched, his biography is easily the best we have on this remarkable man who so profoundly influenced the worlds of politics and publishing.” — David Nasaw, author of Andrew Carnegie
“Before there was Murdoch, Berlusconi, Bloomberg, or Hearst, there was Joseph Pulitzer. This epic biography, with its remarkable new research and vivid, fast-paced writing, will delight anyone who wants to understand the tangled history of politics and the press in modern America.” — Debby Applegate, author of The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher
“The name Pulitzer sheds its radiance over many celebrated writers and newspapers; now James McGrath Morris has made the famous name into a living, loving, thrusting, tumultuous—and lurid—innovator. The story has everything—murder, corruption, scandal, and high achievement. Morris’s meticulous biography takes full advantage of new material. ” — Harold Evans, author of The American Century
“James McGrath Morris masterfully demonstrates the power of biography to reveal our past and inform our future. Deeply researched and beautifully written, Morris has written the definitive Pulitzer .” — Kai Bird, co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning American Prometheus
“An excellent book. . . . There have been other biographies of Pulitzer, most notably W.A. Swanberg’s published in 1967, but James McGrath Morris’s is the best. It is authoritative, lucid and fair to its complicated subject.” — Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post
“Everyone knows the prize, fewer the man. Here’s an antidote to the hand-wringing about the future of the newspaper, a full-scale, full-blooded biography of a penniless immigrant from Hungary who showed what newspapers could do. Seriously good history.” — Harold Evans, The Daily Beast
“Well-researched. . . . Reads like a novel. . . . Morris paints a vivid picture, portraying his subject as an ambitious, hotheaded, at times violent, often charitable man; a perfectionist, shrewd in matters of business yet cold in matters of the heart.” — The New York Times Book Review
“An important new biography about the early days of American newspapering in all its violent, vital, swashbuckling glory. . . . A tour de force of suspence and historical narrative. . . . Mr. Morris is a diligent sleuth.” — The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A major biographical success . . . . A thrilling toboggan-ride tour of history. . . . Pulitzer presents a flood of diary entries, statistics, edotirals, memoranda, and cables from its subject’s many ocean voyages. In this cavalcade of American life and letters, the pages fly by.
The San Francisco Chronicle
Before there was Murdoch, Berlusconi, Bloomberg, or Hearst, there was Joseph Pulitzer. This epic biography, with its remarkable new research and vivid, fast-paced writing, will delight anyone who wants to understand the tangled history of politics and the press in modern America.
The name Pulitzer sheds its radiance over many celebrated writers and newspapers; now James McGrath Morris has made the famous name into a living, loving, thrusting, tumultuous—and lurid—innovator. The story has everything—murder, corruption, scandal, and high achievement. Morris’s meticulous biography takes full advantage of new material.
James McGrath Morris masterfully demonstrates the power of biography to reveal our past and inform our future. Deeply researched and beautifully written, Morris has written the definitive Pulitzer .
James McGrath Morris has given us everything we could have asked for in his new biography of Joseph Pulitzer. Gracefully written and thoroughly researched, his biography is easily the best we have on this remarkable man who so profoundly influenced the worlds of politics and publishing.
Well-researched. . . . Reads like a novel. . . . Morris paints a vivid picture, portraying his subject as an ambitious, hotheaded, at times violent, often charitable man; a perfectionist, shrewd in matters of business yet cold in matters of the heart.
The New York Times Book Review
an attractive, superbly illustrated, and gracefully written account of his subject that might well catch the attention of the Pulitzer Prize trustees.
An accomplished new biography. . . . Pulitzer is not its subject’s first biography. But it is by far the best at explaining Pulitzer’s St. Louis years.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
An important new biography about the early days of American newspapering in all its violent, vital, swashbuckling glory. . . . A tour de force of suspence and historical narrative. . . . Mr. Morris is a diligent sleuth.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
