I learned yesterday that my Stanton biography has won the Seward prize for Civil War biography. This is an annual award, presented by the Civil War Forum of Metropolitan New York, for the best biography of a Civil War figure. I am the first person, I am told, to win this award twice, first for my Seward book and now for my Stanton book. I will be going to New York City in July to receive the award and speak with the Forum. It is not quite the Pulitzer Prize but a nice prize nevertheless.
November Events
As you can see from the events page, I have a number of events coming up in November, almost two weeks on the East Coast.
And these events are going to require different talks. The Lincoln Group of New York will naturally want to hear about Lincoln and Stanton. The Wheeling Public Library calls for a talk about Stanton and the Wheeling Bridge. In Stanton’s home town of Steubenville I will want to talk about his deep lifelong relations with that town. And in Exeter, where we have so many friends, well that will be more personal I think.
Jackson, Washington, Chicago
I am back in southern California for a few days after a trip to Jackson, Mississippi, Washington, DC, and Chicago, Illinois.
Mississippi was very interesting: my friend Sam arranged for me to speak at Mississippi College, to a group of faculty and friends. People were eager to hear about Stanton, and my ideas about why he is so hated in the South. There are a lot of reasons, including his efforts during the war to recruit and arm former slaves, and his efforts after the war to ensure that the Union Army remained in the South.
WSJ and NYT Reviews
Harold Holzer reviewed the Stanton book for the Wall Street Journal yesterday. It is a long, detailed review, and I will not quote it all here, but send the readers of this blog to the review itself. Key quote, from my perspective: “This exhaustively researched, well-paced book should take its place as the new, standard biography of the ill-tempered man who helped to save the Union. It is fair, judicious, authoritative, and comprehensive.”
Another review of the Stanton book will appear in the New York Times Sunday Book Review next Sunday, August 13. It is also long and detailed and generally positive.
Book in Hand
I have the first printed copy of the Stanton book in my hands today. It is an exciting moment, about five years since I first thought about this topic, and here is the finished printed book. Simon & Schuster has done a great job (if I do say so) with the physical book. The paper is smooth, the images look sharp, the cover is great, with a dramatic red spine. It is also exciting because it means that books will be ready for my first book events, in early August, starting with Lido Village Books.
Page proofs and cover quotes and book events
I am once again reading page proofs, “third pass” page proofs this time. I am not supposed to be making many changes, and I am not, but I have re-read some of the Lincoln and Stanton and McClellan quotes against the originals, and have located and corrected a few minor errors.
I am also starting to get “cover quotes” from more famous authors. This morning a quote arrived from Ron Chernow, author of the great biographies of Hamilton and Washington. Chernow writes:
Galley copies
I now have a few “galley copies” of the Stanton book. It is a bound paperback version of the book, not quite final, created by the publisher to excite people about what the REAL book will look like in a few weeks. But from an author’s perspective it is pretty exciting in and of itself; it looks like a book, feels like a book, it is going to be a finished, published book soon.
August 2017
I have learned from Simon & Schuster in the past few days that Stanton will be published in August 2017. We do not have a precise date within that month but we will fix one soon.
This means that I have to give the book, in final form, to S&S by some time in early December. Suddenly all those things that I thought I would do “some day” have to be done some time between now and early December. Yes, I can leave a few things to sort out later, a few footnotes to be checked and completed, a few images to find and permissions to secure. But basically it has to be done soon.
Seattle Prep Remarks
Simon & Schuster has asked me for a list of my speeches about Seward, which turns out to be a long list. While looking for them on my old computer, I came across these remarks at Seattle Prep in early 2014. I post them in case they might help others understand why and how I write books, and indeed help students as they research and write their own papers. They end with a bit of a “teaser” for the Stanton book, coming some time next fall. “Mr. McCarthy,” in the first line, is my good friend Andy McCarthy, head coach of the Seattle Prep mock trial team.
Progress
I am making progress on my biography of Edwin McMasters Stanton. I am finishing today chapter 9, which takes Stanton to the end of 1862, his first year as Secretary of War. I have thus finished the first nine chapters, from 1814 through 1862. I have 1863 ahead of me, two chapters. The end of 1863 should tie up with another chapter already done, covering the first six months of 1864. Then I have a gap, of about a year, the latter part of 1864 and first seven months of 1865, probably three chapters. And then I have drafted, pretty much, the last four chapters, dealing with Reconstruction.