George Bancroft, Brahmin rebel,

3188. George Bancroft / Brahmin Rebel, by Russel B. Nye (read 28 Apr 1999) What in the world did I read this for? Well, it won the 1945 Pulitzer prize for biography, and I had never read it. This book started out very well, and the chapter telling of Bancroft's time in Europe as a student simply amazes. He dropped in on Goethe and had long talks with him, after learning in a few months not only German but French and Italian. He also visited with Byron, Lafayette, Washington Irving--all as a student not yet 21, or just turned such. The book is well worth reading and I am glad it won the prize in 1945 else I would never have read it.

The first chapter is a short biography and the others are thematic and analytical. Nye wrote a full biography in 1945.

This is from 1964, during a brief period when Washington Square Press was publishing several series of high quality original non-fiction in low-priced mass market paperbacks. The publisher and the editors were slightly overoptimistic. They did not sell well and most of the volumes are about unknown now. I am the first member to list this one.

I collect them as relics of a brief era in publishing.