Diary and Autobiography

These four volumes begin the publication of the Adams archives, a collection which Edward Everett Hale called a manuscript history of America in the diaries and correspondence of a single family. The Diary, partially published in the 1850's, has proved a quarry of information on the rise of Revolutionary resistance in New England, the debates in the early Continental Congresses, and the diplomacy and financing of the American Revolution; but it has remained unfamiliar to the wider public. It is an American classic, Mr. Zolta n Haraszti said recently, about which Americans know next to nothing. Actually the Diary's historical value may well prove secondary to its literary and human interest. Now that it is presented in full, we have for the first time a proper basis for comprehending John Adams--an extraordinary human being, a master of robust, idiomatic language, a diarist in the great tradition. From none of the other founders of the Republic do we have anything like a record at once so copious and so intimate. The Autobiography, intended for John Adams' family but never finished, consists of three large sections. The first records his boyhood, his legal and political career, and the movement that culminated in American independence. The second and third parts deal with his diplomatic experiences, and serve among other things as a retrospective commentary on the Diary: they are studded with sketches of Adams' associates which are as scintillating as they are prejudiced. Parts and in some cases all of these sketches were omitted from Charles Francis Adams' nineteenth-century edition. In 1779 John Adams wrote, I am but an ordinary Man. The Times alone havedestined me to Fame--and even these have not been able to give me, much. Then he added, Yet some great Events, some cutting Expressions, some mean Hypocrisies, have at Times, thrown this Assemblage of Sloth, Sleep, and littleness into Rage a little like a Lion. Both the ordinary Man and the Lion live on in these volumes.

Review :
No praise can be too high for this work. In production, in illustrations, in management of the text and, above all, in editing it not only does justice to two of the most important and fascinating of American historical documents, but sets a standard for such undertakings. -- Allan Nevins "Saturday Review" Superb volumes...The record of the American revolutionary movement...is immeasurably enriched by the graphic details and trenchant estimates that bind together these leaves of a statesman's life. -- Adrienne Koch "New York Times Book Review" That the most consistently distinguished family in our national existence felt a passion to record their lives and times seems, at this distance, too good to be true. And so, for that matter, does the magnificant project that makes its debut today. -- John K. Hutehens "New York Herald Tribune" The editing...is a triumph of commonsense and of scholarship something that would have pleased old John Adams himself...the annotations are both full and illuminating...They reveal at every point a mastery of the material, and of history. -- Henry Steele Cornmager "New York Herald Tribune Books" The first four volumes are a veritable triumph of research skill and scholarly effort, endowing the priceless historical raw material with even greater virtue and value by the most scrupulous respect for the original manuscript texts and by the most painstaking work on footnotes which explore inconsistencies and put isolated entries into historical context. One of the great achievements in historical publication in our time. -- J. R. Wiggins "Washington Post" These four magnificently printed volumes are the first to appear out of what eventually will be a vast work of primary importance to every student, professional or casual, of the American past and the American mind. -- Perry Miller "Christian Science Monitor" These four volumes, beautifully printed, splendidly edited, and effectively indexed, mark a publishing event. They will introduce the real John Adams to a new audience. -- Clarence L. Ver Stegg "Chicago Tribune" Every Adams, including the women who married into the family, seemed to be under a compulsion to justify their deeds by words, and to keep a full record of their part in public affairs. To this love of public service they added the inward ruminations of a puritan conscience, never at ease especially when times were comfortable. The result is a profusion of papers that makes even Gladstone's accumulation of documents look, by comparison, like the slovenly legacy of a careless statesman...John Adams ceases to be a figure of history and becomes a living oracle for our distempered age. There are no statesmen like John Adams anywhere in the democratic world today.