List of autobiographies by First Ladies of the United States

The First Lady of the United States is the hostess of the White House. The position is traditionally filled by the wife of the President of the United States, with some historic exceptions.

Helen Taft was the first First Lady to get her memoir published during her lifetime. Every memoir by a First Lady published in the 20th and 21st centuries has been a best seller, at times outselling those of their presidential husbands.^[1]

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

Title	First Lady	Publisher	Date	ISBN
The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant	Grant, JuliaJulia Grant	Putnam Publishing Group	1975	9780399113864
Grant tried but was unable to secure a publisher for her memoirs during her lifetime.
Recollections of Full Years	Taft, HelenHelen Taft	Dodd, Mead & Company	1914
My Memoir	Wilson, EdithEdith Wilson	Bobbs-Merrill Company	1939
This is My Story	Roosevelt, EleanorEleanor Roosevelt	Harper & Brothers	1937
This I Remember	Roosevelt, EleanorEleanor Roosevelt	Harper & Brothers	1949
On My Own	Roosevelt, EleanorEleanor Roosevelt	Harper & Brothers	1958
The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt	Roosevelt, EleanorEleanor Roosevelt	Harper & Brothers	1961
Compiled material from her first three autobiographies with additional chapters.
A White House Diary	Johnson, Lady BirdLady Bird Johnson	Holt, Rinehart & Winston	1970
The Times of My Life	Ford, BettyBetty Ford	Harper & Row	1978	978-0-06-011298-1
Written with Chris Chase.
Betty — A Glad Awakening	Ford, BettyBetty Ford	Doubleday	1987	978-0-385-23502-0
Written with Chris Chase.
First Lady from Plains	Carter, RosalynnRosalynn Carter	Houghton Mifflin	1984	9780395352946
Everything to Gain: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life	Carter, RosalynnRosalynn Carter	Random House	1987	9780394558585
Written with husband Jimmy Carter.
Nancy: The Autobiography of America's First Lady	Reagan, NancyNancy Reagan	HarperCollins	1980	978-0-688-03533-4
Written with Bill Libby.
My Turn: The Memoirs of Nancy Reagan	Reagan, NancyNancy Reagan	Random House	1989	0-394-56368-9
Written with William Novak.
Barbara Bush: A Memoir	Bush, BarbaraBarbara Bush	Scribner	1994	978-0-02-519635-3
Reflections: Life After the White House	Bush, BarbaraBarbara Bush	Scribner	2004	978-0743255820
Living History	Clinton, HillaryHillary Clinton	Simon & Schuster	2003	978-0-7432-2224-2
Hard Choices	Clinton, HillaryHillary Clinton	Simon & Schuster	2014	978-1-4767-5144-3
Spoken from the Heart	Bush, LauraLaura Bush	Scribner	2010	9781439155202

Notes

1. Fehrman, Craig (May 21, 2010), "First Lady Lit", The New York Times, retrieved March 30, 2015.

Further reading

• Wertheimer, Molly Meijer, ed. (2004), Inventing a Voice: The Rhetoric of American First Ladies of the Twentieth Century, Rowman & Littlefield, ISBN 9780742529717.

See also

• List of autobiographies by Presidents of the United States