 First edition | |
| Author | Ulysses S. Grant |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Memoir |
| Publisher | Charles L. Webster & Company |
Publication date | 1885 and 1886 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Pages | 584 (Vol. I) 648 (Vol. II) |
| 973.8 | |
| LC Class | 10032706 |
| Text | The Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant at Wikisource |
The Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant are an autobiography, in two volumes, of Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th President of the United States. The work focuses on his military career during the Mexican–American War and the American Civil War. The volumes were written in the last year of Grant's life, amid increasing pain from terminal throat cancer and against the backdrop of his personal bankruptcy at the hands of an early Ponzi scheme. The set was published by Mark Twain shortly after Grant's death in July 1885.
Twain was a close personal friend of Grant and used his fame and talent to promote the books. Understanding that sales of the book would restore the Grant family's finances and provide for his widow, Twain created a unique marketing system designed to reach millions of veterans with a patriotic appeal just as the famous general's death was being mourned. Ten thousand agents canvassed the North for orders, following a script that Twain had devised. Many were Union veterans dressed in their old uniforms, who went door-to-door offering the two-volume set at prices ranging from $3.50 to $12, depending on the binding ($120 to $410 in 2023).
These efforts sold 350,000 two-volume sets in advance of the book's actual printing. This made the Memoirs one of the bestselling books of the 19th century, in its first year outselling even the publishing behemoth Uncle Tom's Cabin—an extremely unusual result for a non-fiction book. By way of comparison, the memoirs of Grant's colleague William Tecumseh Sherman, published in 1876, were an immense financial success for their author, selling 25,000 copies during its first decade in print. In the end Grant's widow, Julia, received about $450,000 ($15,300,000 in 2023) from Twain during the first three years of publication, suggesting that Grant received around 30% of each sale (i.e., a 30% royalty rate).[1][2]
Despite being explicitly written for money, and with a focus on those aspects of Grant's life most likely to induce sales, the combination of an honest man exploited in a financial scheme and then marked for death by cancer lent the Memoirs immense contemporary interest. The Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant received universal acclaim on its publication and has remained highly regarded by the general public, military historians, and literary critics. Positive attention is often directed toward Grant's prose, which has been praised as lean, intelligent and effective. He candidly depicts his battles against both the Confederates and his internal Army foes.[3][4][5][6]
- ^ Miller, Craig E. "'Give the Book to Clemens'," American History, April 1999, Vol. 34, Issue 1
- ^ "interview with Mark Perry on Grant and Twain: The Story of a Friendship That Changed America". Booknotes. July 18, 2004. Archived from the original on 2016-03-14.
- ^ Grant, Ulysses S. (2011). The personal memoirs of U.S. Grant. Recorded Books. ISBN 978-1-4618-0163-4. OCLC 776987591.
- ^ Russell, Henry M. W. (Spring 1990). "The Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant: The Rhetoric of Judgment". Virginia Quarterly Review. 66 (2): 189–209. JSTOR 26437375.
- ^ Rafuse, Ethan Sepp (July 2007). "Still a Mystery? General Grant and the Historians, 1981–2006". Journal of Military History. 71 (3): 849–874. doi:10.1353/jmh.2007.0230. S2CID 159901226. Archived from the original on 2012-12-14 – via Project MUSE.
- ^ Wilson, Edmund (1962). Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War. pp. 131–173.