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The Shaping of the Presidency

The very first presidential biographers managed to initiate the range of approaches still in evidence today while maintaining a respectful distance from their subjects that would not be broken until 1974.

Gregory Varnum via Wikimedia Commons
Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial. Gregory Varnum via Wikimedia Commons
CARL ROLLYSON
CARL ROLLYSON

Right from the beginning, biographers have presented presidents as figures in a fable of democracy or subjects weighed down by the vexatious facts of history. 

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CARL ROLLYSON
CARL ROLLYSON

Mr. Rollyson is the author of The Life of William Faulkner and The Last Days of Sylvia Plath. He has published fourteen biographies and has written about biography for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington, Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The New Criterion, and other publications.

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