In the following essay, Harbert examines Adams' intentions in The Education of Henry Adams, autobiographical and otherwise.

For readers who have been fascinated by The Education Henry Adams, the most significant event of recent years was the appearance in 1973 of a carefully revised edition, corrected according to the author's final intentions and edited by Adams's chief biographer, Ernest Samuels. At long last, and for the first time since the book was put on sale in 1918, the title page of the Education appears without the infamous and misleading subtitle, "An autobiography." Those two words, added to the 1918 version without authorization from Adams himself, who died before that printing appeared, have been largely responsible for a general confusion about the author's intentions, and, in turn, for a profusion of conflicting opinions, comments, and judgments concerning the final success or failure of Adams's achievement. Yet, all together this almost uncollectable...