First in Peace

When Douglas Southhall Freeman, author of the definitive R. E. Lee, died in 1953, he was at work on a seven-volume life of Washington. Five volumes had been issued, and the sixth, which was near completion, was finished by his colleagues of the Richmond News Leader. The publisher then arranged for two of his co-workers, John Alexander Carroll and Mary Wells Ashworth, to write the closing volume of the series. This work, covering the period from the beginning of Washington’s second Administration to his death in 1799, now appears under the title George Washington: First in Peace (Scribner, $10.00).

Admirers of Dr. Freeman will have no cause to be disappointed with the achievement of those who took over the task. In completeness, in scholarship, in judiciousness, and in style, this work compares favorably with the Lee and with the Washington volumes from Dr. Freeman’s own hand. Here is biography in its highest conception—a narrative of balance and candor, free from the crudities, distortions, special pleading, and curious social assumptions which have plagued this department of literature in recent decades.

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Richard M. Weaver

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When Douglas Southhall Freeman, author of the definitive R. E. Lee, died in 1953, he was at work on a seven-volume life of Washington. Five volumes had been issued, and the sixth, which was near completion, was finished by his colleagues of the Richmond News Leader. The publisher then arranged for two of his co-workers, John Alexander Carroll and Mary Wells Ashworth, to write the closing volume of the series. This work, covering the period from the beginning of Washington’s second Administration to his death in 1799, now appears under the title George Washington: First in Peace (Scribner, $10.00).

Admirers of Dr. Freeman will have no cause to be disappointed with the achievement of those who took over the task. In completeness, in scholarship, in judiciousness, and in style, this work compares favorably with the Lee and with the Washington volumes from Dr. Freeman’s own hand. Here is biography in its highest conception—a narrative of balance and candor, free from the crudities, distortions, special pleading, and curious social assumptions which have plagued this department of literature in recent decades.