About the Book
The Mirrors of Washington appeared in 1921 with no author's name on its spine — only the caricaturist, Cesare, was credited. Its fourteen portraits of the men who ran postwar America — President Harding, the broken Woodrow Wilson, Colonel House, Herbert Hoover, Henry Cabot Lodge, the boss Boies Penrose — were written from close range, in a tone poised exactly between admiration and the knife.
Modeled on London's scandalous 'Mirrors of Downing Street,' the book was the talk of official Washington, which spent the season guessing at its author. He was later revealed as Clinton W. Gilbert, a Philadelphia Public Ledger correspondent. Each portrait pairs psychological gossip with genuine political insight into how power actually moved in the first year of Normalcy.
This digital edition presents the complete keyed text of the 1921 first edition with all fourteen of Cesare's caricature plates, restored from page scans.