Description
Book SynopsisThese volumes document John Adams's thinking and actions during the final years of his congressional service and take him through his first five months as a Commissioner in France in association with Benjamin Franklin and Arthur Lee.
Trade ReviewThese two volumes…bring the corpus of Adams family materials available in a modern letterpress edition to twenty-eight superb volumes. Just as earlier volumes in this series gave an object lesson on how determined men initiated and justified a revolution for political independence, these two illustrate in detail how many of the same men sustained that revolution. The nearly six hundred documents printed and calendared here are more than a record of the activities of John Adams; they are a cross section, with Adams as the epicenter, of the multitude of particular details that had to be attended to in making the struggle for independence successful. -- Constance B. Schulz * Journal of Southern History *
Two by two emerge the volumes from the Adams family manuscripts reposing at the Massachusetts Historical Society. And with the publication of every pair we have reason for gratitude, pleasure, and even awe… Taylor, Lint, and Walker guide us through manuscripts from two of the most exciting years in John Adams’ life and in the history of a struggling new nation. These volumes show what Adams himself contended, that his role at home and abroad during the Revolutionary era was more significant than was generally understood… As these newest volumes of John Adams papers show, no more important editorial and publishing undertaking exists than that of the Adams Papers. Anyone who has struggled through all the microfilm reels of unedited Adams Papers emerges knowing that these amazing manuscripts contain the broadest and most rewarding vantage point we have to view more than a century of American history. -- Paul C. Nagel * New England Quarterly *
Table of ContentsVOLUME 5 Descriptive List of Illustrations Introduction 1. "Weary...almost with my Life" 2. Adams in France 3. Notes on Editorial Method Acknowledgements Guide to Editorial Apparatus 1. Textual Devices 2. Adams Family Code Names 3. Descriptive Symbols 4. Location Symbols 5. Other Abbreviations and Conventional Terms 6. Short Titles of Works Frequently Cited Papers of John Adams, August 1776-March 1778 VOLUME 6 Descriptive List of Illustrations Papers of John Adams, March-August 1778 Index
