R. E. Lee: A Biography.

FREEMAN, Douglas Southall.

Item Number: 78958

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1934-1935.

Early printing of Douglas Southall Freeman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Robert E. Lee. Octavo, four volumes, original cloth, illustrated. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper of volume I, “Autographed for Joseph Reed with all good wishes Douglas Southall Freeman.” In near fine condition with light toning. An nice example.

American historian, biographer and author Douglas Southall Freeman is best known for his multi-volume biographies of Robert E. Lee and George Washington, for which he was awarded two Pulitzer Prizes. Published in four volumes between 1934 and 1945, R. E. Lee: A Biography was met with high praise. The New York Times declared it "Lee complete for all time." Historian Dumas Malone wrote, "Great as my personal expectations were, the realization far surpassed them." The book also established the Virginia School of Civil War scholarship, an approach to writing Civil War history that concentrated on the Eastern Theater of the war, focused the narrative on generals over the common soldier, centered the analysis on military campaigns over social and political events, and treated his Confederate subjects with sympathy.