First Family: Abigail and John
Language: English
Published by Random House USA Inc, 2010
- Hardcover
- Used

Seller: World of Books (was SecondSale), Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.World of Books (was SecondSale)
AbeBooks seller since December 20, 2007
Condition: Used - Very good
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Add to basketItem description from seller
In this rich and engrossing account, John and Abigail Adams come to life against the backdrop of the Republic's tenuous early years. Drawing on over 1,200 letters exchanged between the couple, Ellis tells a story both personal and panoramic. We learn about the many years Abigail and John spent apart as John's political career sent him first to Philadelphia, then to Paris and Amsterdam; their relationship with their children; and Abigail's role as John's closest and most valued advisor. Exquisitely researched and beautifully written, First Family is both a revealing portrait of a marriage and a unique study of America's early years.
Seller Inventory # 00107544742
- Title
- First Family: Abigail and John
- Author
- University Joseph J Ellis
- Publisher
- Random House USA Inc
- Publication year
- 2010
- Condition
- Very Good
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0307269620
- ISBN 13
- 9780307269621
John and Abigail Adams left an indelible and remarkably preserved portrait of their lives together in their personal correspondence: both Adamses were prolific letter writers (although John conceded that Abigail was clearly the more gifted of the two), and over the years they exchanged more than twelve hundred letters. Joseph J. Ellis distills this unprecedented and unsurpassed record to give us an account both intimate and panoramic; part biography, part political history, and part love story.
Ellis describes the first meeting between the two as inauspiciousJohn was twenty-four, Abigail just fifteen, and each was entirely unimpressed with the other. But they soon began a passionate correspondence that resulted in their marriage five years later.
Over the next decades, the couple were separated nearly as much as they were together. Johns political career took him first to Philadelphia, where he became the boldest advocate for the measures that would lead to the Declaration of Independence. Yet in order to attend the Second Continental Congress, he left his wife and children in the middle of the war zone that had by then engulfed Massachusetts. Later he was sent to Paris, where he served as a minister to the court of France alongside Benjamin Franklin. These years apart stressed the Adamses union almost beyond what it could bear: Abigail grew lonely, while the Adams children suffered from their fathers absence.
John was elected the nations first vice president, but by the time of his reelection, Abigails health prevented her from joining him in Philadelphia, the interim capital. She no doubt had further reservations about moving to the swamp on the Potomac when John became president, although this time he persuaded her. President Adams inherited a weak and bitterly divided country from George Washington. The political situation was perilous at best, and he needed his closest advisor by his side: I can do nothing, John told Abigail after his election, without you.
In Elliss rich and striking new history, John and Abigails relationship unfolds in the context of Americas birth as a nation.
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
Joseph J. Ellis won the Pulitzer Prize for Founding Brothers. His portrait of Thomas Jefferson, American Sphinx, won the National Book Award. He is the Ford Foundation Professor of History at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, Where he lives with his wife and their youngest son.
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
World of Books (was SecondSale)
Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
AbeBooks seller since December 20, 2007
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