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Edmund Morris

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Author

The Resume

    (May 27, 1940-May 24, 2019)
    Born in Nairobi, Kenya
    Wrote the biographies 'The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt' (1979), 'Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan' (1999), 'Theodore Rex' (2001) and 'Beethoven: The Universal Composer' (2005)
    Writes about travel and the arts for the New York Times, Harper's and The New Yorker

Why he might be annoying:

    Although he wrote about two presidents, he claimed 'I've never been much aware of politics.'
    After a $3 million advance, fourteen years of research and unprecedented access to Ronald Reagan's papers, including his diaries, Morris declared himself unable to bring Reagan into focus and wrote a bizarre biography in which he inserted a fictionalized version of himself as a character interacting with Reagan.
    He also dramatizes or invents events, includes his fictional son as a character, and features misleading endnotes about 'correspondence' with imaginary characters to thoroughly confuse the reader.
    Maureen Dowd wrote that he had 'pioneered the Ally McBeal school of historiography, in which we regularly cut away from the action for wacky out-of-body fantasies.'

Why he might not be annoying:

    He said, 'My ultimate desire was always to come to America. Ever since I read the Adventures of Tom Sawyer.'
    His conventional biography 'The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt' won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award.
    Shortly after the release of 'The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt,' Morris' wife Sylvia published a biography of Roosevelt's wife Edith.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 8 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 4 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 8 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 12 Votes: 58.33% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 11 Votes: 81.82% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 17 Votes: 70.59% Annoying
    In 2011, Out of 5 Votes: 80.0% Annoying
    In 2010, Out of 16 Votes: 93.75% Annoying
    In 2009, Out of 22 Votes: 86.36% Annoying
    In 2008, Out of 26 Votes: 73.08% Annoying