List of autobiographies by presidents of the United States

Many presidents of the United States have written autobiographies about their presidencies and/or (some periods of) their life before their time in office. Some 19th-century U.S. presidents who wrote autobiographies are James Buchanan and Ulysses S. Grant, though Grant's autobiography is about his time as general during the U.S. Civil War and not about his presidency. Presidential memoir has proved to be a lasting and popular genre—every president since Calvin Coolidge has published one after leaving office, and more recent entries have earned their authors tens of millions of dollars in royalties.

Ulysses S. Grant, working on his memoirs in 1885. His Personal Memoirs is considered by historians to be among the best by a U.S. president.

List of autobiographies

Covering the period of their presidency

Note: Only publication information for the first edition is given.

Title	President	Publisher	Date	ISBN	Notes
The Autobiography of Martin Van Buren	Martin Van Buren	U.S. Government Printing Office	1920		Posthumously compiled and edited from Van Buren's manuscript materials by John C. Fitzpatrick. Volume II
Mr. Buchanan's Administration on the Eve of Rebellion	James Buchanan	D. Appleton and Company	1866		Link
Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography	Theodore Roosevelt	Macmillan	1913		Link
The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge	Calvin Coolidge	Cosmopolitan Book Corporation	1929		Previously published serially in the periodical Cosmopolitan.
The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover	Herbert Hoover	Macmillan	1951		Published in three volumes: Volume 1: Years of Adventure 1874-1920; Volume 2: The Cabinet and the Presidency 1920-1933; Volume 3: The Great Depression 1929-1941.
Memoirs: Year of Decisions	Harry S. Truman	Doubleday	1955
Memoirs: Years of Trial and Hope	Harry S. Truman	Doubleday	1956
The Autobiography of Harry S Truman	Harry S. Truman	Colorado Associated University Press	1980	ISBN 978-0-870-81090-9	Posthumously compiled and edited from Truman's manuscript materials by historian Robert Ferrell.
White House Years: Mandate for Change	Dwight D. Eisenhower	Doubleday	1963
White House Years: Waging Peace	Dwight D. Eisenhower	Doubleday	1965
At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends	Dwight D. Eisenhower	Doubleday	1969	ISBN 978-0-915-99204-1
The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency 1963-1969	Lyndon B. Johnson	Holt, Rinehart and Winston	1971	ISBN 978-0-030-84492-8
RN - The Memoirs of Richard Nixon	Richard Nixon	Grosset & Dunlap	1978	ISBN 978-0-448-14374-3
In the Arena: A Memoir of Victory, Defeat, and Renewal	Richard Nixon	Simon & Schuster	1990	ISBN 978-0-671-70096-6
A Time to Heal	Gerald Ford	Harper & Row	1979	ISBN 978-0-060-11297-4
Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President	Jimmy Carter	Bantam Books	1982	ISBN 978-0-553-05023-3
A Full Life: Reflections at 90	Jimmy Carter	Simon & Schuster	2015	ISBN 978-1-501-11563-9
An American Life	Ronald Reagan	Simon & Schuster	1990	ISBN 978-1-451-62839-5
A World Transformed	George H. W. Bush	Knopf Publishing Group	1998	ISBN 978-0-679-43248-7
My Life	Bill Clinton	Knopf Publishing Group	2004	ISBN 978-0-375-41457-2
Decision Points	George W. Bush	Crown Publishers	2010	ISBN 978-0-307-59061-9
A Promised Land	Barack Obama	Crown Publishers	2020	ISBN 978-1-524-76316-9

Not covering the period of their presidency

Title	President	Publisher	Date	ISBN
The Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson	Thomas Jefferson		1821
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant	Ulysses S. Grant	Charles L. Webster & Company	1885–86
The Rough Riders	Theodore Roosevelt	Charles Scribner's Sons	1899
Mr. Citizen	Harry S. Truman	Independence Press	1960	ISBN 978-0830900954
Crusade in Europe	Dwight D. Eisenhower	Doubleday	1948	ISBN 978-0-8018-5668-6
Six Crises	Richard Nixon	Doubleday	1962	ISBN 978-0-385-00125-0
Where's the Rest of Me?	Ronald Reagan	Duell, Sloan and Pearce	1965	ISBN 978-0-918294-16-6
Why Not the Best?: The First Fifty Years	Jimmy Carter	Broadman Press	1975	ISBN 978-0-8054-5582-3
Turning Point: A Candidate, a State, and a Nation Come of Age	Jimmy Carter	Three Rivers Press	1993	ISBN 978-0-8129-2299-8
An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood	Jimmy Carter	Simon & Schuster	2001	ISBN 978-0-7432-1199-4
Looking Forward	George H. W. Bush	Doubleday	1987	ISBN 978-0-385-14181-9
A Charge to Keep	George W. Bush	William Morrow & Company	1999	ISBN 978-0-688-17441-5
Dreams from My Father	Barack Obama	Times Books	1995	ISBN 978-1-4000-8277-3
The Audacity of Hope	Barack Obama	Crown/Three Rivers Press	2006	ISBN 978-0-307-23769-9
Trump: The Art of the Deal	Donald Trump	Random House	1987	ISBN 978-0-446-35325-0
Trump: Surviving at the Top	Donald Trump	Random House	1990	ISBN 978-0-394-57597-1
Trump: The Art of the Comeback	Donald Trump	Times Books	1997	ISBN 978-0812929645
Promises to Keep	Joe Biden	Random House	2007	ISBN 978-1-4000-6536-3
Promise Me, Dad	Joe Biden	Flatiron Books	2017	ISBN 978-1250171672

Published diaries and papers

Title	President	Editor	Publisher	Date	ISBN
The Diary of James K. Polk	James K. Polk
The Diary of James A. Garfield	James A. Garfield
The Eisenhower Diaries	Dwight D. Eisenhower	Robert Ferrell	W W Norton & Co Inc	1976	ISBN 978-0-393-33180-6
Prelude to Leadership: The European Diary of John F. Kennedy: Summer 1945	John F. Kennedy		Regnery Publishing	1995	ISBN 978-0-89526-459-6
The Letters of John F. Kennedy	John F. Kennedy	Martin W. Sandler	Bloomsbury Press	2013	ISBN 978-1-60819-271-7
Richard Nixon: Speeches, Writings, Documents	Richard Nixon	Rick Perlstein	Princeton University Press	2010	ISBN 978-1-4008-3568-3
White House Diary	Jimmy Carter		Farrar, Straus and Giroux	2010	ISBN 978-0-374-28099-4
The Reagan Diaries	Ronald Reagan	Douglas Brinkley	HarperCollins	2007	ISBN 978-0-06-087600-5
All the Best	George H. W. Bush		Scribner	1999	ISBN 978-0-684-83958-5

See also

• List of memoirs by first ladies of the United States
• List of American political memoirs

Further reading

• Trex, Ethan (September 9, 2010), "A Brief History of Presidential Memoirs", mental floss
• Robinson, Joshua (November 8, 2010), "A Brief History of the Presidential Memoir", The Daily Beast

External links

Free-access presidential autobiographical works

• Thomas Jefferson's autobiography
• Martin Van Buren's autobiography
• James Buchanan's autobiography
• Ulysses S. Grant's autobiography
• Theodore Roosevelt's autobiography
• Calvin Coolidge's autobiography
• Herbert Hoover's autobiography