Taken together with the celebrated Diary and Autobiography, The Earliest Diary, the Adams Family Correspondence, and The Legal Papers of John Adams, they constitute as revealing and complete a documentation of the development, both personal and public, of a successful revolutionist as modern history affords...In [these letters] the writer bequeathed to posterity a means of sensing some of the excitement, the importance, the fears, the apprehensions of the decade in which 'the real American revolution' was taking place--in short, the flavor of the times.
   --Carl Bridenbaugh, Times Literary Supplement

Two by two, emerge the volumes from the Adams family manuscripts reposing at the Massachusetts Historical Society. And with the publication of every pair we have reason for gratitude, pleasure, and even awe…Taylor, Lint, and Walker guide us through manuscripts from two of the most exciting years in John Adams' life and in the history of a struggling new nation. These volumes show what Adams himself contended, that his role at home and abroad during the Revolutionary era was more significant than was generally understood…As these newest volumes of John Adams papers show, no more important editorial and publishing undertaking exists than that of the Adams Papers. Anyone who has struggled through all the microfilm reels of unedited Adams Papers emerges knowing that these amazing manuscripts contain the broadest and most rewarding vantage point we have to view more than a century of American history.
   --Paul C. Nagel, New England Quarterly

The great theme…is that of independence; all else is subordinate to it. The reader may trace here the evolution of John Adams' thought during this crucial year…His Plan of 'Treaties became a model in use down to World War II and his Thoughts on Government was designed to unite north and south on basic principles. No matter, it seems, was too small for his attention nor too large to attempt solution. A colossus indeed! The editing of this work is admirable in every way. The footnotes are exhaustive but never excessive or boring. The introductory essays are illuminating. This is an elegant and inspiring work.
   --Robert C. Cilmore, Historical New Hampshire