Late one afternoon John produced two thin withered volumes of the Letters of Mrs. As the particular house I was writing about at that time was that of the Adams family in Quincy, Massachusetts, I asked my son John if he would look in the library at Columbia University to see if there was anything about Abigail, judging hers to be the domestic responsibilities, while her husband attended to his duties as a statesman.

I had agreed to do that book if I was permitted to concentrate on the people who had lived in the houses, rather than on the curtains they hung. I first met Abigail when I was writing a book about historic houses in America, fifty houses in all.

Yet I have pride, I know I have a large portion of it. I know the voice of Fame to be mere weathercock, unstable as Water and fleeting as Shadow. Circumstances and Connections Respectable In Youth the Mind Is Like a Tender Twigġ4. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us./piracy. Copyright infringement is against the law. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. 'Levin crafts an intimate portrait of a bookish, devoted young patriot who struggled to balance filial duties to doting parents, a troubled marriage to a wife whose own writings reveal her inner turmoil, and an ambitious career.The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. Levin brings Louisa Catherine Adams, Adams's troubled wife, into the center of the picture, where she belongs, and the author is shrewd about family dynamics.'- Publishers Weekly

A study of the first half of John Quincy's life and times that's as concerned with the inner man as with his increasingly remarkable public achievements.'- Washington Post In addition to recounting his fascinating career, Phyllis Lee Levin finds keys to John Quincy's character in his family life and his troubled though loving marriage. John Quincy was George Washington's pick for minister to the Netherlands in 1793 John Adams appointed his son minister to Prussia in 1797 and in 1809, James Madison sent him to Russia, where he earned the sterling reputation that would lead James Monroe to name him Secretary of State. Here the author of Abigail Adams chronicles our sixth president's earlier diplomatic career, beginning with his adolescent years as his father's secretary in Europe, where he became fluent in several languages and knew such founding fathers as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. A patriot by birth, the first son of John and Abigail Adams, John Quincy Adams (1767≡848) was virtually foreordained for public life.

Abigail Adams by Phyllis Lee Levin