As is appropriate for a man remembered as much for his way with words as for an otherworldly command of his hands, Muhammad Ali's name has maintained quite a presence in the book world since his athletic heyday in the 1960s and '70s. 1975 in particular proved an active year for the late boxer's literary endeavors, as Publishers Weekly's archives show.
In PW''s June 23, 1975 issue, Ali is shown at a press conference held during the American Booksellers Association convention (now known as BookExpo America), where he touted The Greatest: My Own Story, his autobiography co-written with Richard Durham and published by Random House.
"The greatest person, the greatest author?" Ali responded to a reporter's question on what, exactly, his title referred to. "I'm not an author. I didn't write the book. I just told them what to say." His editor, Toni Morrison—yes, that Toni Morrison—was in the crowd.
Earlier that year in its March 3 issue, PW printed a telegram Ali sent to the magazine in response to a story published in its February 17 issue, which caused a small kerfuffle regarding whether some of the biographies being released about him that year were authorized.
"I have heard of a number of books being written about me but the only one which I have any connection with and which I am revealing the true story about myself for the first time to the public is one I'm writing myself in cooperation with Richard Durham for Random House and for which I have just turned in the final pages this week," Ali wrote. "I can't be responsible for every Tom Dick and Harry that writes about me."
A response from Maurice Girodias, then publisher of Freeway Press, followed in the March 24 issue.
