Profiles in Courage by KENNEDY, John F

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956. A Man Does What He Must"
John F. Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize Winning Work

KENNEDY, John F. Profiles in Courage. New York: Harper & Brothers, [1956].

First edition, first printing with code "M-E" (December 1955) on verso of title-page.

Octavo ( 8 3/8 x 5 5/8 inches; 233 x 143 mm.). xxii, 266 pp. Eight pages of illustrations between pp. 10 & 11.
Newspaper cutting loosely inserted between p. 54 (blank) and p. 55 with light stain from cutting.

Publishers quarter black cloth over blue boards, spine lettered in gilt, original dust jacket with $3.50 on front flap.

Small 1/4 inch closed tear on lower edge of front panel of dust jacket. A near fine copy.

John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), then a U.S. senator, won the Pulitzer Prize for the work.

Profiles in Courage is a 1956 volume of short biographies describing acts of bravery and integrity by eight United States senators. The book profiles senators who defied the opinions of their party and constituents to do what they felt was right and suffered severe criticism and losses in popularity as a result. It begins with a quote from Edmund Burke on the courage of the English statesman Charles James Fox, in his 1783 "attack upon the tyranny of the East India Company" in the House of Commons, and focuses on mid-19th-century antebellum America and the efforts of senators to delay the American Civil War. Profiles in Courage was widely celebrated and became a bestseller. It includes a foreword by Allan Nevins.