Foreword by Joseph J. Ellis Introduction Note to the Reader and Acknowledgments Courtship and Marriage "Love Sweetens Life": October 1762-July 1774 "The Decisive Day Is Come": August 1774-December 1775 Independence "We Are Determined to Foment a Rebelion": January-October 1776 "Kind Providence Has Preserved to Me a Life": January-November 1777 The Years Abroad "I Cast My Thoughts Across the Atlantick": February 1778-April 1782 "A Signal Tryumph": July 1782-March 1788 A New Government "The Most Insignificant Office": December 1788-January 1794 "This Whirligig of a World": February 1794-December 1795 The First Couple "I Am Heir Apparent": January 1796-January 1797 "The Chief Majestracy of a Nation": February 1797-February 1801 Epilogue: The Death of Abigail Chronology Index
Their loving partnership in service to our country is a remarkable story and one that merits retelling over and over again. -- Senator Ted Kennedy, as quoted in the Boston Globe 20071119
Margaret A. Hogan is an independent scholar and former editor of the Adams Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society. C. James Taylor is former Editor in Chief of the Adams Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
A wonderfully vivid account of the momentous era they lived
through, underscoring the chaotic, often improvisatory
circumstances that attended the birth of the fledgling nation and
the hardships of daily life.
*New York Times*
Provide[s] valuable insights into the early days of partisan
politics…The Adamses’ correspondence gives modern Americans an
extraordinarily personal view of our country’s founding.
Intermingled with comments on the great events of the day—the
Battle of Bunker Hill, the vote for independence, the inauguration
of Washington as president—are discussions of daily life, stories
of neighbors and relatives, complaints about the high cost of
living and laments over such family tragedies as a stillborn
daughter and the deaths of parents. Their courtship letters are
especially delightful.
*New York Times Book Review*
Extraordinary…There are many books on these two that provide
context and background; this one, in which John and Abigail’s
voices soar unencumbered over the pages, is a lovely addition to
the Adams shelf. You can’t help but feel a little guilty reading
these rich exchanges, since they were borne of long separations,
with mail delivery that was slow at best, and during wartime,
unreliable. Even the act of writing could be difficult: in one
letter, Abigail talks about a winter so cold, the ink freezes in
her pen…While they are apart, they endure the deaths of parents,
friends, and, most heartbreaking, an infant daughter. Their elegiac
letters carry an almost unbearable beauty.
*Boston Globe*
The letters reveal the making of the American nation, in all its
chaos and passion, from the inside…Both John and Abigail’s letters
are packed with evocative details that throw the reader into the
epicenter of American revolutionary life. They recount the
developments that led to the Declaration of Independence and the
emergence of opposing political parties, the Federalists and
Republicans. But, equally fascinating, they open a window on to a
private world…My Dearest Friend deserves a special place in the
literary canon of the founding fathers, not only for recording the
amazing relationship between John and Abigail, but also because of
the rarity of the survival of such a correspondence…The Adamses’
letters are so enjoyable because they offer a wonderful breadth of
topics, breathlessly jumping between flirtatious teasing, gossip
about friends and family, and philosophical and political
argument.
*The Guardian*
Hogan and Taylor…have given history buffs a treat—the most
comprehensive edition of letters between two extremely lively
writers, America’s second president and his wife… Here are
trenchant political exchanges, such as Abigail’s famous plea to her
husband and the Continental Congress to ‘Remember the Ladies,’ and
Adams’s less famous, revealing reply: he noted that while it was
well known that the Revolution had prompted children, slaves and
apprentices to rebel, ‘your Letter was the first Intimation that
another Tribe more numerous and powerful than all the rest were
grown discontented.’ Many of the letters are personal, from
coquettish courtship epistles to Abigail’s moving premonition that
the baby she was carrying would be stillborn. The letters shine a
light on such aspects of daily life as illness, Sunday sermons and
cuisine. Ellis’s…foreword explains the rarity of such intimate
correspondence—Martha Washington, for instance, destroyed most of
the letters she and George wrote. Readers will agree that this book
is a treasure.
*Publishers Weekly (starred review)*
Their loving partnership in service to our country is a remarkable
story and one that merits retelling over and over again.
*Senator Ted Kennedy, as quoted in the Boston Globe*
This new edition of the John and Abigail Adams letters, including
some never before published, refreshes what many observers consider
the paradigmatic correspondence in American history. It also showed
Abigail Adams as a woman of prodigious talents and shrewd insights
on matters small and large.
*The Morning News*
John and Abigail Adams wrote to each other throughout separations
caused by war and presidential duties. This comprehensive
collection of their letters shows them to be affectionate, playful
at times, concerned about both national and personal matters, and
literate…The letters provide a unique perspective on people and
events and allow us to appreciate the great sacrifice they made in
service to the country.
*World*
An extraordinary series of letters…Most 18th Century letters make
for dry reading. Abigail and John’s are entirely different. They
pour their hearts onto the page, expressing their raw feelings as
flesh-and-blood humans, not the marble statues we associate with
the Founders…The letters are priceless historic artifacts, not only
for what they say about these two people, and about the
world-changing events in which they played a role, but also because
of the way they transport us back to the time…The letters are much
more than rich veins to be mined with an historian’s pick-axe. They
are fun reading, bubbling with the charm, intelligence and passion
of these two, who were both compelling and entertaining
writers.
*Providence Journal*
Both Abigail and John Adams decried long separations during their
marriage (while acknowledging them as necessary for the greater
public good), but the unintended legacy of such trials were the
thoughtful, loving, and literate letters exchanged by the couple
that open a window on the birth and early years of our
republic…This is a treasure, for general readers and scholars
alike.
*Booklist*
My Dearest Friend is a refreshing tribute to a remarkable marriage
and a reminder of the power of, and intimacy in, good old-fashioned
correspondence…As remarkable for its literary eloquence as for its
historical significance, My Dearest Friend provides insight into
the complexities America faced during its founding years and into a
marriage which made sacrifices for, and was sustained by, the
commitment to securing a ‘more perfect union.’
*Times Literary Supplement*
In helping to found a country where their children (and ours) could
grow up free, John and Abigail Adams bestowed an extraordinary
blessing on all of us. Yet one of their greatest legacies was an
unintended one, a consequence of their long separation and constant
need for one another. They left behind marvelously detailed,
literate, and loving letters to each other—1,016 survive—that add
immeasurably to our understanding of this remarkable couple and
their tumultuous times. Some 289 of them have been gathered into
this new and fascinating collection, compiled by the editors of the
Adams Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society…The letters
reveal a man who, for all his flaws, showed stupendous courage,
creativity, stubborn devotion to duty, and keen insight into the
nature of power. As great as he is, Abigail is easily his match. It
is clear from these letters that, in addition to keeping the
family’s farm going in his absence (a difficult task calling for
hard-headed business savvy), she often shows shrewder political
instincts. Intensely curious about politics, she clamors for
details and advises her husband about what steps to take. As he put
it himself, she was his ballast, steadying the ship and keeping him
moving forward, and he would not have become the great man he did
without her…The crude stuff of life is here, illuminated with the
lightning flashes of history. The letters remind us that these were
two people who were groping in the darkness, unsure what would
become of their lives and their new country…Their letters open a
window to their age like few other documents. That alone makes them
invaluable. But they are also fun reading, bubbling with the charm,
intelligence, pungency, and passion of these two, who were
compelling and entertaining writers, one as good as the other.
*Weekly Standard*
In My Dearest Friend, I am on page thirty one, and I have not
cried, but something more powerful has happened. I stop with the
book open in my hands, and just think. There’s no way to describe.
Certain lines make my entire body have goose bumps in awe of the
beauty, the awareness of Abigail and John. I just sit on the couch,
for maybe ten, twenty minutes, thinking. The world is somewhere
else, far away, when I read this. I am transported to a land over
two centuries old, but these humans, these revolutionaries, had the
ideas that could change the world today. And these ideas were in
normal, everyday letters. I’m astounded even now, and I’ve known
this for quite some time. This book makes me want to be a
historian. There’s no other way to put it. I want to spend the rest
of my life learning about history, writing about history. I want to
be able to read the real letters, to see the real documents…I would
give this book to nearly anyone. It’s a love story, historical
fiction, an adventure, almost anything but fantasy. Though their
lives were fantastical. Please read this book. It is changing my
life. Maybe it will change yours.
*Look Books (lookbooks.wordpress.com)*
Ask a Question About this Product More... |