"A TRIUMPH… BRINGS JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, SR. TO LIFE": FIRST EDITION OF TITAN, SIGNED BY RON CHERNOW

CHERNOW, Ron. Titan. The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. New York: Random House, (1998). Thick octavo, original half black cloth, original dust jacket. $750.

First edition of Chernow's widely praised biography, signed and dated ("6/4/98") on the title page by him. A fine copy.

Chernow's Titan "is a triumph of the art of biography. Unflaggingly interesting, it brings John D. Rockefeller Sr. to life through sustained narrative portraiture of the large-scale, 19th-century kind… It is filled with outsize characters involved in actions of great magnitude, as Aristotle might have said. At its heart is a great mystery, which is how one person could have contained two such contradictory characters as Rockefeller did: on the one hand, the rapacious robber baron who destroyed everything that stood in the path of making both Standard Oil the ultimate industrial monopoly and himself the world's richest man; on the other hand, the infinitely good-hearted philanthropist who loved to make gifts of dimes and universities. How Titan addresses this mystery is perhaps its most fascinating aspect… Rockefeller is vividly present in these pages with all the uncanny power that enabled him to build his great empire while still a young man. You can feel the force of his mind and will, the ferocious calculation that helped to shape an entire industrial age" (New York Times).

Fine condition.