Most Popular Books by Stanley Weintraub

Biography of Edward VII covering the years before he became king.

In Arms and the Man, the Chocolate Soldier, a fugitive mercenary, seeks refuge in the bedroom of the enemy, and in the satire, John Bull's Other Island, a typical Englishman arrives in Ireland to run for Parliament. Original.

From an acclaimed military historian comes the astonishing story of World War I's 1914 Christmas truce—a spontaneous celebration when enemies became friends. It was one of history's most powerful—yet forgotten—Christmas stories. It took place in the improbable setting of the mud, cold rain, and senseless killing of the trenches of World War I. It happened in spite of orders to the contrary by superiors. It happened in spite of language barriers. And it still stands as the only time in history that peace spontaneously arose from the lower ranks in a major conflict, bubbling up to the officers and temporarily turning sworn enemies into friends. Silent Night, by renowned military historian Stanley Weintraub, magically restores the 1914 Christmas Truce to history. It had been lost in the tide of horror that filled the battlefields of Europe for months and years afterward. Yet, in December 1914, the Great War was still young, and the men who suddenly threw down their arms and came together across the front lines—to sing carols, exchange gifts and letters, eat and drink and even play friendly games of soccer—naively hoped that the war would be short-lived, and that they were fraternizing with future friends. It began when German soldiers lit candles on small Christmas trees, and British, French, Belgian, and German troops serenaded each other on Christmas Eve. Soon they were gathering and burying the dead, in an age-old custom of truces. But as the power of Christmas grew among them, they broke bread, exchanged addresses and letters, and expressed deep admiration for one another. When angry superiors ordered them to recommence the shooting, many men aimed harmlessly high overhead. Sometimes the greatest beauty emerges from deep tragedy. Surely the forgotten Christmas Truce was one of history's most beautiful moments, made all the more beautiful in light of the carnage that followed it. Stanley Weintraub's moving re-creation demonstrates that peace can be more fragile than war, but also that ordinary men can bond with one another despite all efforts of politicians and generals to the contrary.

Just a few of the words of presidential wisdom found in Dear Young Friend: “I rejoice that you have learnt to write,…for as this is done with a goosequill, you know the value of a goose.” –Thomas Jefferson, to his granddaughter, Cornelia Randolph “As to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a bit of silly affection if were to begin now?” –Abraham Lincoln to Grace Bedell “If we are successful [in the election], it will not be handsome behavior for any of my family to exhibit exultation or talk boastingly, or be in vain about it.” –Rutherford B. Hayes, to his son “Ruddy” “The other sixty cents are for my other six grandchildren. They are not born yet.” –Theodore Roosevelt, to Marjorie Sterrett, who was collecting dimes to fund a battleship “The John Birchers are just Ku Klux without the nightshirts.” –Harry Truman to David S. McCracken “If you really believe, you will see them. My [Irish] ‘little people’ are very small, wear tall black stovepipe hats, green coats and pants, and have long, white beards.” –John Kennedy to Mark Aaron Perdue Presidents since Washington have written to children. Chief executives prior to the overwhelmingly busy present even went through the White House mail themselves, choosing what to answer—a task in the e-mail age now impossible. Some earlier presidents, even as late as Eisenhower, confided opinions to young people that they rarely confessed to their peers. The letters range in subject form the monumental to the immaterial—although almost nothing is insignificant to a child.

People known to Bernard Shaw had every reason to fear becoming recognisable characters in his plays. However, as eminent Shaw scholar Stanley Weintraub reveals in this collection, Shaw's relationships to real or imagined personalities could be both curiously unexpected and deliciously complex.

At twenty, "the Fra Angelico of Satanism," as Roger Fry was to call Aubrey Beardsley, was working as an obscure clerk in a London life insurance company. Three years later he was the most notorious--and perhaps the most influential--artist in England. His controversial drawings for Oscar Wilde's Salome were so daring and different that someone quipped that Wilde's play illustrated Beardsley's art. His work as art editor of the two most famous magazines of the 1890's, The Yellow Book and The Savoy, consolidated his fame although he was unreasonably dragged into the Wilde scandal and nearly destroyed by it. By the time he produced his strikingly scabrous drawings for a pornographer publisher's Lysistrata he was dying, yet still incredibly productive. But he had already indelibly stamped the age with his name. In a front-page review in the New York Times Book Review in 1967, art critic John Russell wrote of Beardsley that "as a biography--a life's story" the book "needs no successsor." Aubrey Beardsley: Imp of the Perverse began as an updating of the original biography but new material at hand and the need to reinterpret Beardsley from the perspective of augmented life-records made a mere updating impractical, especially since the climate for publishing has become far more receptive to truth in biography, however explicit.

This book traces the progress and texture of the friendship between T.E. Lawrence and George Bernard Shaw.

"William Golding has written some of the most exciting fiction of the postwar period. This resourceful study of his novels examines them from the perspective of an original thesis: that each represents a response to a specific book by an earlier writer, transformed by Golding's artistry into a wholly new work bearing his unmistakable imprint. By exploring the origins of Golding's novels, the authors redefine the total creative process and clearly show the particular force and relevance of each work. Any serious reader of fiction will be interested in this original exposition of the Golding canon from Lord of the Flies, Golding's reaction to a Victorian boys' book, to The Spire, his Ibsenite novel"--Back cover.

A biography of the close friend of Max Beerbohm, H.G. Wells, D.H. Lawrence, Arnold Bennett, Osbert Sitwell, Oscar Wilde and others of the London literary scene during the early 20th century.

Biographer of both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Stanley Wientraub employs previously little-used or unknown diaries, letters, memoirs and reportage from both sides of the Atlantic to throw fresh light on Edward VII's half-century of waiting to become King. The book provides a picture of the Prince and his worlds: his difficult and frustrating childhood, his introductions to gentlemanly sins at Oxford and Cambridge, and his chilly arranged marriage to the pretty but dull Princess Alexandra, from whom he frenetically escaped in a succession of balls, races, spas, gambling, carousing and whoring.

Although the Victorian era closed, literally, with the death of the Queen in January 1901, the post-Victorian transition had begun decades earlier. Farewell, Victoria! presents Stanley Weintraub's engaging perspectives on late-Victorian literature, primarily but not exclusively its fiction, which looked backward to popular antecedents and forward to the societal and technological future. The early 1880s saw the close of iconic Victorian literary careers--Disraeli, Rossetti, Eliot, Meredith, and Trollope among others. It was also the decade of new reputations that would continue in some cases into the middle of the next century. The 1890s witnessed a plethora of experiments in modernity. The Yellow Book and The Savoy, graphic realism and a redefinition of morals, futuristic prophecy and exotic fantasy would expand taste, enlarge the market for books, and write a finis to leftovers from the past. Publisher's note.

Historian Stanley Weintraub, author of Silent Night, combines two winning topics—Christmas and the Civil War—in General Sherman’s Christmas, new from Smithsonian Books. Focusing on the holiday season of 1864, when General Sherman relentlessly pushed his troops across Georgia to capture Savannah, General Sherman’s Christmas includes the voices of soldiers and civilians on both sides of the conflict and is illustrated with striking period prints, making it the perfect holiday present for every history buff.

Examines the Revolutionary War from 3 divergent & distinct vantage points: the battlefields; the Amer. leadership under George Washington; & -- most originally -- that of England, embroiled in controversy over the war. The British lost the war & found themselves overwhelmed by the geographic & time constraints that prevented their military from holding on to the 1,800-mile length of the 13 colonies, from across 3,000 miles of ocean. Many in London realized that Amer. independence was only a matter of time. Yet the British were enveloped in a fantasy world of self-delusion as the war trudged along. As opposition to & frustration with the failing war increased, so did pacifist sentiment for & sympathy with their Amer. cousins. Illustrations.

1997 marks the centenary of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. This biography captures her personality and describes her life from the dramatic prelude of her birth in 1819 to her death in the first months of the 20th century.

In A Writing Life, Stanley Weintraub applies the biographical skills he perfected over a lifetime of writing to tell his own story. In doing so, he introduces us to a who's who of the twentieth century whom he encountered in his life and in his research, from Eddie Fisher to C. P. Snow, from Leonard Woolf to Pierre Salinger, from Ray Bradbury to Danny Kaye to Isaac Bashevis Singer, and he takes us inside his world of discovery and enables us to feel his passion and experience his relentless intensity for finding the letters, diaries and documents that reveal the important details of history. Weintraub was one of the preeminent biographers, one of the most distinguished military historians, and one of the most important scholars of playwright George Bernard Shaw of the last 60 years. He published biographies of American and English figures of political, cultural and military significance, including Shaw, Lawrence of Arabia, Whistler, Beardsley, Queen Victoria (which reached #1 on The Times of London bestseller list), Prince Albert, King Edward VII, Disraeli, MacArthur, Eisenhower, Marshall and FDR; he wrote histories covering aspects of the American Revolution, the Civil War, World War I, the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and the Korean War, and he wrote a series of books about wartime Christmases, including Washington getting home for Christmas in 1783, Sherman reaching Savannah for Christmas in 1864, the Christmas Truce of 1914, Christmas at the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, and a military escape from Korea at Christmas in 1950.

Review of Maugham: a biography / Ted Morgan, and W.H. Auden : the life of a poet / Charles Osborne.

Includes typescript letter by Henry Miller to Stanley Weintraub, editor of "The Shaw Bulletin", with corrected typescript for a review of "The Strange Triangle of G.B.S.", dated March 19, 1957, that was published in "The Shaw Bulletin", May 1957; also "The Shaw Bulletin" for Jan. and May 1957.