Early American Literature, January 1st, 2006
In his 1821 autobiographical retrospective, Thomas Jefferson recounts the history of his only published book, Notes on the State of Virginia. Jefferson recalls that, in 1780, he had welcomed the Abbe de Marbois' questionnaire about his home state as a way to organize the memoranda he had collected during the years: "I thought this a good occasion to embody their [the memoranda's] substance, which I did in the order of Mr. Marbois' queries so as to answer his wish and to arrange them for my own use" (Autobiography 55). From this description, Jefferson goes on to discuss the history of the book'...
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