THE EXTRAORDINARY MR. MORRIS

by Howard Swiggett ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 27, 1952

A biography as filled with life and the zest for life as was its revolutionary days hero, Gouverneur Morris. Morris' life was tied to, or rather voyaged freely along with all the main currents of his day. Statesman, financier, at home in Europe's artistic and intellectual worlds as well as his own American one; gay, unfettered by the more mundane worries of his contemporaries; a lavish appreciator of beauty; active, handsome; - he was an important figure in the founding of United States government and a man who predicted the despotism of Napoleon before Edmond Burke. His lightheartedness and the foibles that were often an issue of his woman-and-party-filled life, incurred the wrath of co-workers, among whom were such notables as Tom Paine and Jefferson; on the other side of the Atlantic, during his ministership to France he was well acquainted with Talleyrand and Madame de Stael. Fascinated by his person and his period, Swiggett combines his feelings with his skill effortlessly. His work is well documented, fast moving, endowed with the descriptive power that often quite excitingly recaptures the gay social life, the political frustrations, the scandals, the stirring ideas that characterized Europe and America at the turn of the 18th century and the life of one of the epoch's true men-of-the-world. Period history and personality.

Pub Date: March 27, 1952

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1952

Categories: NONFICTION