To His Excellency Thomas Jefferson: Letters to a President [Paperback]

Jack McLaughlin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1993

These letters, written to one of our most revered presidents and published to coincide with the 250th anniversary of his birth, provide a window into the life of a new nation and its people, offering vivid sketches of the writers, their families and the often precarious circumstances of their existence. Illustrations.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Jefferson's careful filing of the letters that he received as President made possible this collection, which reveals something of the diverse beliefs and yearnings of his America. BOMC and History Book Club selections in cloth. Illustrations.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Editor McLaughlin has collected and briefly comments upon unsolicited letters from the American public to Jefferson during his presidency (1801-09). Uncovering this material while researching his recent Jefferson and Monticello: The Biography of a Builder ( LJ 4/15/88; an LJ "Best Book of 1988"), McLaughlin contends that these previously unpublished letters reflect the social history of the laboring class. He divides the book into sections about politics, patronage, literature, debt and justice, inventions, health, and letters from youth, women, lunatics, and lovers. Though he has unearthed some fascinating letters, McLaughlin provides little historical context and uncritically equates the unkown letter writers with the laboring class, which he never defines. Recommended for scholars in the field.
- David Szatmary, Univ. of Washington, Seattle
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Avon Books (P) (July 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380719649
• ISBN-13: 978-0380719648
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,327,604 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars To His Excellency Thomas Jefferson: Letters to a President, March 5, 2002

By 

Joe Zika "Khemprof" (Cincinnati, Ohio) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: To His Excellency Thomas Jefferson: Letters to a President (Hardcover)

Jack McLaughlin has put together a volume dedicated to the letters written to Thomas Jefferson asking for help, money, adoring admiration, or passionately political. Jefferson wrote back or was silent, but he had feelings for all of them whether irritation or callousness, civility or graciousnes. Jefferson wrote letters from earily sunrise till one or two in the afternoon in his later years. He wrote at his writing table up till nine days prior to his death. He had arthritis in his writing hand from older injuries, but if he recieved a civil letter he nonetheless found time to answer it... even if not knowing the person who wrote it.

This book is extreamly valuable to see the American psychi of that time... a looking glass into the past. We see the intellectual and cultural lives of the people who wrote to Jefferson. The letters are fun to read... eaves-dropping on history, peeking into the lives of Americans long forgotten.

All the letters have a strong feeling for the purpose to which they were written, capitvating the reader. I found the book to have a fascinating but charming view into the Jefferson mailbag.

If you want to live history vicariously at its rote basic, what better way than to live it through the letters of the time. And letters seemed to follow Jefferson, as Jefferson wrote many. As the general public of undstinguished Americans wrote, they recorded their thoughts for posterity... it is with a distinct pleasure to relive their lives.

This book is a piece of priceless Americana at its finest, enjoyable to read and it will captivate.