Theodore Roosevelt: Letters and Speeches

This unprecedented volume brings together 367 letters written by Theodore Roosevelt between 1881 and 1919 as well as four of his most famous speeches. Addressed to his family, and to an immense range of correspondents that includes Jacob Riis, Rudyard Kipling, Henry Cabot Lodge, John Hay, Owen Wister, Upton Sinclair, Alfred Thayer Mahan, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Roosevelt's letters demonstrate the astonishing extent of his interests and accomplishments while revealing the personal dimension of one of our greatest statesmen. Roosevelt describes climbing the Matterhorn; hunting grizzly bears and cougars; reading Anna Karenina while pursuing thieves through the Dakota wilderness; playing with his children; visiting Panama during the digging of the canal; and being shot while running for president in 1912. And, most poignantly, Roosevelt reveals the pride and anxiety he felt when his sons went off to battle in World War I, and the profound grief he experienced when his youngest child was killed. Also included are four speeches, best known by the phrases they introduced into the language: "The Strenuous Life" (1899); "The Big Stick" (1901); "The Man in the Arena" (1910); and "The New Nationalism" (1910).