Times Books and the Presidents
by John F. Baker -- Publishers Weekly, 4/9/2001
Times Books at Henry Holt is launching an ambitious series of biographies that will cover all the 42 American presidents to date, not just the glamorous ones who often get written about—and historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. is combining with editorial director David Sobel to put it together. One rights angle is that agent Andrew Wylie is advising Times on the development of the series, and his client Garry Wills is writing one of the first two bios to be published in the series: James Madison, which will be released along with Louis Auchincloss on Theodore Roosevelt on President's Day next year. Each book will be a long biographical essay that also muses on the subject's character and career. Other writers signed include Joyce Appleby of UCLA on Thomas Jefferson; Sean Wilentz of Princeton on Andrew Jackson; Tom Wicker on Dwight Eisenhower; and Douglas Brinkley on Gerald Ford. No word yet on who has been chosen to immortalize Millard Fillmore.
