Welcome to my author website, which contains the latest information about my non-fiction writings, which started with a biography of the actress Jean Arthur in 1997, published by Limelight Editions. The year 2014 saw publication of two new books: American Queen, a biography of Kate Chase, a Civil War-era socialite and political hostess; and An All-American Murder, about a notorious cold case homicide in Columbus, Ohio in 1975. The former, published by Da Capo Press, is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other sites, and the latter is a free e-book available on Scribd as well as Google Books. My latest book, published in November 2016 by Da Capo, is a biography of American Revolutionary war hero and guerrilla fighter Francis Marion, the “Swamp Fox.” He was the subject of a Walt Disney television series in the late 1950s-early 1960s and the inspiration for the Mel Gibson film "The Patriot."
My current project is a book about the influential early 20th century white shoe lawyers of Wall Street, to be published in March 2019 by Dutton, a division of Penguin Random House. The title is "White Shoe: How a New Breed of Wall Street Lawyers Changed Big Business--and the American Century."
Thank you for visiting! - John
NEW: WHITE SHOE
BY JOHN OLLER
“This well-written and meticulously researched book documents the rise of the big American law firm, the modernization of its management, and the men who led them during the early twentieth century. . . . An extremely well executed collective biography of both the people and the law firms that they created. It should be on the shelf of anyone interested in the development of the American legal profession.”
- Herbert Hovenkamp, Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania School of Law and the Wharton School, and author of Antitrust Law
NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK: THE SWAMP FOX
by John Oller
"Not only a new Francis Marion, but a new American Revolution emerges from these riveting pages. Best of all, John Oller has performed this feat with solid, totally convincing research. This is a book that every American will learn from—and enjoy."
—Thomas Fleming, bestselling author of The Great Divide
PURCHASE ON: AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | INDIE BOUND | iBOOKS
OTHER BOOKS BY JOHN OLLER:
"Beautiful, brilliant, and wildly ambitious, Kate Chase was a master of political intrigue and behind-the-scenes power in an era when women were told to be seen and not heard. A terrific work of historical research and reconstruction, American Queen follows her fascinating but forgotten life to tell the story of the Civil War and its scandalous aftermath—its assassinations, impeachments and sexual hijinks—from an entirely fresh perspective."
- Debby Applegate, Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher
"A tragic, fascinating story well-told."
- Greg Victor, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
!["Every time I think I’ve read all there is to read about vintage Hollywood, I’m disarmed and delighted to find original and important new books on the subject. Jean Arthur: The Actress Nobody Knew [is] among the best I’ve read in years." - Leonard Maltin, film critic](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/54162099e4b01440253fc8ae/t/541d9dc0e4b0d7392514c289/1411227072750/)
"Every time I think I’ve read all there is to read about vintage Hollywood, I’m disarmed and delighted to find original and important new books on the subject. Jean Arthur: The Actress Nobody Knew [is] among the best I’ve read in years."
- Leonard Maltin, film critic
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