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Title: Ulysses S. Grant (The Works Of Hamlin Garland - 45 Volumes) by Hamlin Garland ISBN: 0-7812-1225-1 Publisher: Reprint Services Corp Pub. Date: January, 1999 Format: Library Binding List Price(USD): $59.00

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Average Customer Rating: 4.67 (3 reviews)

Rating: 4
Summary: A Charming Little Bio
Comment: Over a hundred years since it was first published, this is still one of the premier biographies of Grant. Whether that is a tribute to the superior merits of this book or the weaknesses of modern Grant scholarship is an interesting question. The value of Garland's book lies in the many interviews he conducted with people who knew Grant best, particularly his wife and sons. This generous use of first-person narratives scattered throughout the book has both pluses and minuses. While the universal faultiness of human memory has to be carefully considered when reading these recollections (some of which describe events that took place more than sixty years before Garland interviewed them,) there is nothing more biographically interesting than reading accounts of a person's life given by those who actually saw this life unfold. In fact, it's a pity no historian has thought to publish a book consisting only of the full texts of these many interviews Garland conducted, as the ultimate oral history of Grant. With proper annotation, it would probably be the finest book about him yet.

My only real fault with this book--other than the caveat about the uncertainty that always surrounds old memories of the past--is Garland's writing style. I have never read any of his other works, but I am aware that he was a popular novelist in his day, and still commands a substantial cult following. This surprises me a little, because I find his prose style tends to alternate between leaden clunkiness and a prim sappiness ("There is a whisper to be heard, also, of a little maid living in those days whose face and voice had come to be very precious to Ulysses...") I normally have a weak spot for Victorian sentimentalism, but "precious" is the word for passages like that.

All in all, however, it's still a book well worth reading for anyone with an interest in Grant--or anyone who wishes to develop one.

Rating: 5
Summary: The best Grant biography... period.
Comment: Ulysses S. Grant has been shafted and misunderstood throughout the century since his passing. This book rectifies that slight. I've exhaustively examined the author's interviews and notes for this book and can attest that his scholarship is unparrelelled. Garland truly and completely understood his subject in his many nuances. This is the premier Grant biographty, unsullied by the passage of 100 years since its publication. If you seek to know Grant as he really was, Garland's bio is a MUST HAVE.

Rating: 5
Summary: Clear, direct, and enlightening portrait of Ulysses S. Grant
Comment: A veritable time machine, this book picks you up and drops you down in the middle of the 19th century where the you will be treated to the most incisive and unbiased view of Grant this reviewer has ever seen. Garland interviewed people who actually knew Grant and the immediacy of his observations shines through. You'll never get this kind of a portrait through the filter of a century of history. One of a kind.