ADAMS, ABIGAIL SMITH (1744-1818)

Biographies

• * Akers, Charles W.  Abigail Adams:  An American Woman.  Boston:  Little, Brown, 1980. Although a small and informational work, this biography provides necessary, new and good information on Abigail Adams and her public role as First Lady, and how the public and press responded to her.

• Bernice, Jane.  Abigail Adams.  Cleveland Heights, OH:  Borrower’s Press, 1982.

• Bobbe, Dorothie.  Abigail Adams: The Second First Lady.  New York:  Minton Balch, 1929. A popular and romanticized version of Mrs. Adams’ life story.

• * Butterfield, L. H., Marc Friedlaender, and Mary-Jo Kline, eds.  The Book of Abigail and John:  Selected Letters of the Adams Family, 1762-1784.  Cambridge:  Harvard University Press, 1975.

• * Criss, Mildred.  Abigail Adams:  Leading Lady.   New York:  Dodd, Mead 1952.

• Gelles, Edith Belle.  Abigail Adams:  Domesticity and the American Revolution. Irvine:  University of California Press, 1978.

• * Gelles, Edith B.  Portia: The World of Abigail Adams.  Bloomington:  Indiana University Press, 1992.  An excellent perspective biography of Abigail Adams as a person, placed into the contexts of her friendships and family relationships, as well as the various “public Abigails” which she has been portrayed as over the years. It makes her a flesh and blood human being, with virtues and vices.

• * Gelles, Edith B.  First Thoughts:  The Life and Letters of Abigail Adams.   New York:   Twayne, 1999.

• * Gelles, Edith B.  Abigail Adams:  A Writing Life.  New York:  Routledge, 2002.

• Holberg, Ruth Langland.  Abigail Adams.   Evanston, IL:  Row, Peterson and Company, 1950.

• Keller, Rosemary Skinner.  Abigail Adams and the American Revolution: A Personal History.  New York:  Arno Press, 1982.

• * Keller, Rosemary.  Patriotism and the Female Sex:  Abigail Adams and the American Revolution.  Brooklyn, NY:  Carlson, 1994.

• * Levin, Phyllis Lee.  Abigail Adams:  A Biography.  New York:  St Martin’s Press, 1987.  The Levin biography is the most thorough of any written about Mrs. Adams and utilizes fully all the available sources on her.

• Manera, Alexandria.  Abigail Adams.  Minneapolis:  Lake Street Publishers, 2003.

• * Richards, Laura E.  Abigail Adams and Her Times.  New York:  D. Appleton & Company, 1917. This is the first biography of Mrs. Adams and draws upon the various collections of her published correspondence up to that time.

• * Smith, Page.  John Adams.  2 vols.  Garden City, NY:  Doubleday, 1962. Although the definitive biography of Abigail Adams’ husband, she is a strong and predominant character in both volumes, and portrayed in the context of a partnership; thus this presidential biography is included under biography for Mrs. Adams.

• * Withey, Lynne.   Dearest Friend:  A Life of Abigail Adams.  New York:  Free Press, 1981.  An excellent biography which discusses Abigail Adams in her capacity as a public figure, as First Lady, and presents her in a thorough context of women's history, and defines her feminism.

• * Whitney, Janet.  Abigail Adams.  Boston:  Little, Brown & Company, 1947. A popular biography.

  Edited Collections of Abigail Adams’s Writings

• Adams, Abigail.  The Adams Family in Auteuil, 1784-1785, As Told in the Letters of Abigail Adams.  Boston:  Massachusetts Historical Society, 1956.

• Adams, Charles Francis, ed.  Letters of Mrs. Adams the Wife of John Adams.  Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1848.  Not only the first published book of Mrs. Adams’ letters, but the first book ever published on a First Lady.

• Adams, Abigail.  I Cannot Say I Think You Very Generous to the Ladies.  San Francisco, 1975.  A collection of the correspondence between Abigail and John Adams in 1776.

• * Capon, Lester J.  The Adams-Jefferson Letters.  2 vols.  Chapel Hill:  University of North Carolina Press, 1959.

• * Mitchell, Stewart, ed.  New Letters of Abigail Adams.  Boston:  Houghton Mifflin Company, 1947.

• * Ryerson, Richard, et al., eds.  Adams Family Correspondence.  6 vols.  Cambridge:  Harvard University Press, 1963--.

* This book is in the National First Ladies' Library collection.

NOTE: All books not marked with an asterisk (*) are needed for the National First Ladies' Library collection.

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