Letters of Abigail Adams
Thanks to the HBO mini-series based on David McCullough's biography of John Adams, millions of viewers are becoming fascinated by the brilliant correspondence of Adams and his wife Abigail.
The great interest in their letters is actually rooted in the mid-1800s. Their grandson published a collection, Letters of Mrs. Adams in 1840.
A year later, Charles Francis Adams published a two-volume collection of his grandfather's side of the correspondence. That collection concludes with a letter written in 1800 from the new executive mansion, which was still under construction. The letter contains a famous quote, which Franklin D. Roosevelt later had inscribed into a White House mantel: "May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof!"
Those wonderful books, as well as related titles, have been digitized by Google Books and can easily be downloaded. Feel free to create a digital bookshelf of the letters John and Abigail Adams would address to "My Dearest Friend."
Image of Abigail Adams courtesy of New York Public Library Digital Collections.
Comments
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