Adams Papers

The Adams Papers project was founded in 1954 to edit and publish the writings of the family of John Adams. This extraordinary family included presidents, statesmen, scholars, and literary figures. The family members’ extensive writings—letters, diaries, legal and diplomatic papers, and more—form an unmatched record of the first century and a half of American history, in which four generations played a central role. The manuscript collection at the Massachusetts Historical Society forms the nucleus of the project, to which have been added more than 27,000 items from libraries, institutions, and individuals.

Explore “Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive” at the Massachusetts Historical Society »

Sub-Collections

Below are the in-print works in this collection. Sort by title, author, format, publication date, or price »

1.Cover: Adams Family Correspondence, Volumes 1 and 2: December 1761 – March 1778

Adams Family Correspondence, Volumes 1 and 2: December 1761 – March 1778

Adams Family
Butterfield, L. H.
Garrett, Wendell D.
Sprague, Marjorie

The Adams Family Correspondence, L. H. Butterfield writes, “is an unbroken record of the changing modes of domestic life, religious views and habits, travel, dress, servants, food, schooling, reading, health and medical care, diversions, and every other conceivable aspect of manners and taste among the members of a substantial New England family.”

2.Cover: Adams Family Correspondence, Volumes 3 and 4: April 1778 – September 1782

Adams Family Correspondence, Volumes 3 and 4: April 1778 – September 1782

Adams Family
Butterfield, L. H.
Friedlaender, Marc

The letters in these volumes, written from both sides of the Atlantic, chronicle the nearly five years in which John Adams—in successive missions to Europe, accompanied first by one son, then by two—initiated what would be a continuing role for Adamses in three generations: representing their country and advancing its interests in the capitals of Europe. If the letters of John and Abigail are central, those written by others are hardly less interesting: the concerns of young John Quincy at school in Leiden and his observations of St. Petersburg at age fourteen; the adventure-filled return voyage of Charles, aged eleven, to America; and the interests of the younger Abigail, maturing in Braintree.

3.Cover: Adams Family Correspondence, Volumes 5 and 6: October 1782 – December 1785

Adams Family Correspondence, Volumes 5 and 6: October 1782 – December 1785

Adams Family
Ryerson, Richard Alan
Revelas, Joanna M.
Walker, Celeste
Lint, Gregg L.
Costello, Humphrey

With the summer of 1784, most of the family reunited to spend nearly a year together in Europe. These volumes document John Adams’s diplomatic triumphs, his wife and daughter’s participation in the cosmopolitan scenes of Paris and London, and his son John Quincy’s travels in Europe and America.

4.Cover: Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 7: January 1786 – February 1787

Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 7: January 1786 – February 1787

Adams Family
Hogan, Margaret A.
Taylor, C. James
Walker, Celeste
Cecere, Anne Decker
Lint, Gregg L.
Woodward, Hobson
Claffey, Mary T.

In their myriad letters to one another the Adamses interspersed observations about their own family life—births and deaths, illnesses and marriages, new homes and new jobs, education and finances—with commentary on the most important social and political events of their day, from the scandals in the British royal family to the deteriorating political situation in Massachusetts that eventually culminated in Shays’ Rebellion.

5.Cover: Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 8: March 1787 – December 1789

Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 8: March 1787 – December 1789

Adams Family
Hogan, Margaret A.
Taylor, C. James
Rodrique, Jessie May
Woodward, Hobson
Lint, Gregg L.
Claffey, Mary T.

By early 1787, as this latest volume of the award-winning series Adams Family Correspondence opens, John and Abigail Adams, anticipating a quiet retirement from government in Massachusetts, were quickly pulled back into the public sphere by John’s election as the first vice president under the new Constitution. With their characteristic candor, the Adamses thoughtfully observe the world around them, from the manners of English court life to the politics of the new federal government in New York during this crucial historical period.

6.Cover: Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 9: January 1790 – December 1793

Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 9: January 1790 – December 1793

Adams Family
Hogan, Margaret A.
Taylor, C. James
Barzilay, Karen N.
Woodward, Hobson
Claffey, Mary T.
Karachuk, Robert F.
Sikes, Sara B.
Lint, Gregg L.

1790–1793 marked the beginning of the American republic, a contentious period as the nation struggled to create a functioning government amid bitter factionalism. As usual, the Adams family was in the midst of it all. This volume offers insight into the family and the frank commentary on life that readers have come to expect from the Adamses.

7.Cover: Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 10: January 1794 – June 1795

Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 10: January 1794 – June 1795

Adams Family
Hogan, Margaret A.
Taylor, C. James
Martin, Sara
Woodward, Hobson
Sikes, Sara B.
Lint, Gregg L.
Georgini, Sara

The Adams family comments on national and international events, from America’s growing tensions with Britain and France to virulent domestic political factionalism and the Whiskey Rebellion. The most significant event for the Adamses was John Quincy’s appointment as U.S. minister resident at The Hague, the beginning of a long diplomatic career.

7.5.Cover: The Earliest Diary of John Adams: June 1753 – April 1754, September 1758 – January 1759

The Earliest Diary of John Adams: June 1753 – April 1754, September 1758 – January 1759

Adams, John
Butterfield, L. H.
Friedlaender, Marc
Garrett, Wendell D.

The existence of this diary was totally unsuspected until its somewhat accidental discovery among papers at the Vermont Historical Society during a search for Adams family letters of a later period. In part, the diary antedates by more than two years all other diaries of John Adams, and significantly supplements the Diary and Autobiography of John Adams. Among other matters, the newly found diary contains material on John Adams’s life as an undergraduate at Harvard, his choice of a career, his law studies and his first case as a practicing lawyer, his ambitions, and his observations on girls.

8.Cover: Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 11: July 1795–February 1797

Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 11: July 1795–February 1797

Adams Family
Hogan, Margaret A.
Taylor, C. James
Martin, Sara
Millikan, Neal E.
Woodward, Hobson
Sikes, Sara B.
Lint, Gregg L.

The letters in this volume of Adams Family Correspondence span the period from July 1795 to the eve of John Adams’s inauguration, with the growing partisan divide leading up to the election playing a central role. The fiery debate over funding the Jay Treaty sets the political stage, and the caustic exchanges between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans only grow as rumors surface of George Washington’s impending retirement. John’s equanimity in reporting to Abigail and his children on the speculation about the presidential successor gives way to expectation and surprise at the voracity of electioneering among political allies and opponents alike. Abigail offers keen, even acerbic, commentary on these national events. From Europe, John Quincy and Thomas Boylston shed light on the rise of the French Directory, the shifts in the continental war, and the struggles within the Batavian government, and John Quincy’s engagement to Louisa Catherine Johnson in London opens the next great collection of correspondence documenting the Adams family saga.

8.Cover: Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, Volume 1: 1755–1770

Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, Volume 1: 1755–1770

Adams, John
Butterfield, L. H.
Faber, Leonard C.
Garrett, Wendell D.

The Autobiography, intended for John Adams’s family but never finished, consists of three large sections. The first records his boyhood, his legal and political career, and the movement that culminated in American independence. The second and third parts deal with his diplomatic experiences, and serve among other things as a retrospective commentary on the Diary; they are studded with sketches of Adams’s associates which are as scintillating as they are prejudiced. Parts and in some cases all of these sketches were omitted from Charles Francis Adams’s nineteenth-century edition.

8.Cover: Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, Volume 2: 1771–1781

Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, Volume 2: 1771–1781

Adams, John
Butterfield, L. H.
Faber, Leonard C.
Garrett, Wendell D.

Adams’s Diary is a font of information on Revolutionary resistance in New England, debates in the early Continental Congresses, and diplomacy and financing of the American Revolution. Presented in full, we have a basis for comprehending him: an extraordinary human being; master of robust, idiomatic language; diarist in the great tradition.

8.Cover: Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, Volume 3: Diary, 1782–1804; Autobiography, Part One (to October 1776)

Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, Volume 3: Diary, 1782–1804; Autobiography, Part One (to October 1776)

Adams, John
Butterfield, L. H.
Faber, Leonard C.
Garrett, Wendell D.

John Adams’s Diary has proved a quarry of information on the rise of Revolutionary resistance in New England, the debates in the early Continental Congresses, and the diplomacy and financing of the American Revolution. The Autobiography, intended for Adams’s family but never finished, consists of three large sections. The first records his boyhood, his legal and political career, and the movement that culminated in American independence.

8.Cover: Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, Volume 4: Autobiography, Parts Two and Three (1777–1780)

Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, Volume 4: Autobiography, Parts Two and Three (1777–1780)

Adams, John
Butterfield, L. H.
Faber, Leonard C.
Garrett, Wendell D.

The Autobiography, intended for John Adams’s family but never finished, consists of three sections. The second and third parts deal with his diplomatic experiences, and serve among other things as a retrospective commentary on his Diary: they are studded with sketches of Adams’s associates which are as scintillating as they are prejudiced. Parts and in some cases all of these sketches were omitted from Charles Francis Adams’s nineteenth-century edition.

9.Cover: Diary of John Quincy Adams, Volume 1: November 1779 – March 1786

Diary of John Quincy Adams, Volume 1: November 1779 – March 1786

Adams, John Quincy
Allen, David Grayson
Friedlaender, Marc
Taylor, Robert J.
Walker, Celeste

Volume 1 and Volume 2 of the Diary of John Quincy Adams begin the publication of the greatest diary in American History. Recording a span of sixty-eight years, it has been known heretofore only in partial form. When Charles Francis Adams edited his grandfather’s diary, he chose to omit “the details of common life,” reduce “the moral and religious speculations,” and retain criticisms of others only if they applied to public figures “acting in the same sphere with the writer.” Now the diary is being published complete for the first time.

9.Cover: Diary of John Quincy Adams, Volume 2: March 1786 – December 1788, Index

Diary of John Quincy Adams, Volume 2: March 1786 – December 1788, Index

Adams, John Quincy
Allen, David Grayson
Friedlaender, Marc
Taylor, Robert J.
Walker, Celeste

Volume 1 and Volume 2 of the Diary of John Quincy Adams begin the publication of the greatest diary in American History. Here is a remarkable record of the passage from adolescence to manhood of a precocious and sensitive boy torn by self-doubt and driving himself to fulfill his promise and his parents’ expectations.

10.Cover: Diary of Charles Francis Adams, Volume 1: January 1820 – June 1825

Diary of Charles Francis Adams, Volume 1: January 1820 – June 1825

Adams, Charles Francis
Butterfield, L. H.
Friedlaender, Marc

The present volume reveals Charles Francis Adams as a sensitive and self-critical young man during his college years, in the social whirl of Washington while his father was Secretary of State and President, during his training as a lawyer in Daniel Webster’s Boston law office, and throughout his prolonged courtship of Abigail B. Brooks, a New England heiress. A central theme of these volumes is the struggle which raged within young Adams’ mind and heart between the warm, poetic heritage of his Southern-born mother and the cold, political, New England legacy of his Adams forebears.

10.Cover: Diary of Charles Francis Adams, Volume 2: July 1825 – September 1829

Diary of Charles Francis Adams, Volume 2: July 1825 – September 1829

Adams, Charles Francis
Butterfield, L. H.
Friedlaender, Marc

The present volume reveals Charles Francis Adams as a sensitive and self-critical young man: in the social whirl of Washington while his father was Secretary of State and President, during his training as a lawyer in Daniel Webster’s Boston law office, and throughout his prolonged courtship of Abigail B. Brooks, a New England heiress. The defeat of his father in the 1828 election, the tragic death of his older brother, and his marriage to Abigail in 1829, with which the volume ends, were way stations in his course toward making himself a “New England man.”

11.Cover: Diary of Charles Francis Adams, Volume 4: September 1829 – December 1832

Diary of Charles Francis Adams, Volume 4: September 1829 – December 1832

Adams, Charles Francis
Friedlaender, Marc
Butterfield, L. H.

Covering the period from Adams’s marriage in September 1829 to the end of 1832, these volumes record the early years of his maturity during which he was seeking to find his vocation.

12.Cover: Diary of Charles Francis Adams, Volume 6: January 1833 – June 1836

Diary of Charles Francis Adams, Volume 6: January 1833 – June 1836

Adams, Charles Francis
Butterfield, L. H.
Friedlaender, Marc

Twenty-five at the start of these volumes, Adams had yet to embark on the public career that would mark him a statesman, but by their conclusion he had been drawn into the maelstrom of politics. It was an unwilling plunge, dictated by what both he and his father, John Quincy Adams, regarded as betrayal of the elder Adams by Daniel Webster and his Whigs. Once in, however, he showed himself politically adept.

13.Cover: Diary of Charles Francis Adams, Volume 8: June 1836 – February 1840

Diary of Charles Francis Adams, Volume 8: June 1836 – February 1840

Adams, Charles Francis
Friedlaender, Marc
Ryerson, Richard Alan
Taylor, Robert J.
Walker, Celeste

The period from Adams’s twenty-eighth to thirty-second year was characterized by his turn from the political activities that had occupied him for the preceding several years. The course of the Van Buren administration he had helped to elect dissatisfied him, the Massachusetts Whig leadership had earned his distrust, positions on political issues that would either echo or oppose those being vigorously espoused by his father, John Quincy Adams, he felt inhibited from avowing publicly. So confronted, Charles found occupation in preparing and expressing himself on economic matters of moment—banking and currency—and moral questions generated by the slavery issue.

14.Cover: Papers of John Adams, Volumes 1 and 2: September 1755 – April 1775

Papers of John Adams, Volumes 1 and 2: September 1755 – April 1775

Adams, John
Taylor, Robert J.
Kline, Mary-Jo
Lint, Gregg L.

Aside from the Legal Papers of John Adams, published in 1965, these two volumes are the first in Series III: General Correspondence and Other Papers of the Adams Statesmen. Volumes 1 and 2 of the Papers of John Adams include letters to and from friends and colleagues, reports of committees on which he served, his polemical writings, published and unpublished, and state papers to which he made a contribution.

15.Cover: Papers of John Adams, Volumes 3 and 4: May 1775 – August 1776

Papers of John Adams, Volumes 3 and 4: May 1775 – August 1776

Adams, John
Taylor, Robert J.
Lint, Gregg L.
Walker, Celeste

Military affairs provide some of the most fascinating subjects, including accounts of the Battle of Bunker Hill, assessments of high-ranking officers, and complaints about the behavior of riflemen sent from three states to aid the Massachusetts troops.

16.Cover: Papers of John Adams, Volumes 5 and 6: August 1776 – July 1778

Papers of John Adams, Volumes 5 and 6: August 1776 – July 1778

Adams, John
Lint, Gregg L.
Taylor, Robert J.
Walker, Celeste

These volumes document John Adams’s thinking and actions during the final years of his congressional service and take him through his first five months as a Commissioner in France in association with Benjamin Franklin and Arthur Lee.

17.Cover: Papers of John Adams, Volumes 7 and 8: September 1778 – February 1780

Papers of John Adams, Volumes 7 and 8: September 1778 – February 1780

Adams, John
Lint, Gregg L.
Taylor, Robert J.
Ryerson, Richard Alan
Walker, Celeste
Revelas, Joanna M.

An unparalleled account of early American diplomacy. Legal and constitutional scholars will find Vol. 8 particularly interesting. The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, drafted by Adams, served as a crucial source for the U.S. Constitution; the earliest surviving version of that text is here published with full annotation for the first time.

18.Cover: Papers of John Adams, Volumes 9 and 10: March–December 1780

Papers of John Adams, Volumes 9 and 10: March–December 1780

Adams, John
Lint, Gregg L.
Revelas, Joanna M.
Ryerson, Richard Alan
Walker, Celeste
Decker, Anne M.

These volumes chronicle Adams’s efforts to convince the British that their nation’s economic survival demanded an immediate peace; his debate with the French foreign minister, the Comte de Vergennes, over the proper Franco–American relationship; and his struggle to obtain a loan in the Netherlands, where policies were dictated by Mammon.

19.Cover: Papers of John Adams, Volume 11: January–September 1781

Papers of John Adams, Volume 11: January–September 1781

Adams, John
Lint, Gregg L.
Ryerson, Richard Alan
Cecere, Anne Decker
Shea, Jennifer
Taylor, C. James
Walker, Celeste

In mid-March 1781, John Adams received his commission and instructions as minister to the Netherlands and embarked on the boldest initiative of his diplomatic career. Disappointed by the lack of interest shown by Dutch investors in his efforts to raise a loan for the United States, Adams changed his tactics, and in a memorial made a forthright appeal to the States General of the Netherlands for immediate recognition of the United States. Published in Dutch, English, and French, it offered all of Europe a radical vision of the ordinary citizen’s role in determining political events. In this volume, for the first time, the circumstances and reasoning behind Adams’s bold moves in the spring of 1781 are presented in full.

20.Cover: Papers of John Adams, Volume 12: October 1781 – April 1782

Papers of John Adams, Volume 12: October 1781 – April 1782

Adams, John
Lint, Gregg L.
Ryerson, Richard Alan
Cecere, Anne Decker
Taylor, C. James
Shea, Jennifer
Walker, Celeste
Hogan, Margaret A.

This volume chronicles Adams’s efforts, against great odds, to achieve formal recognition of the United States. Documents include his vigorous response to criticism of his seemingly unorthodox methods by those who would have preferred that he pursue a different course, including Congress’s new secretary for foreign affairs, Robert R. Livingston.

21.Cover: Papers of John Adams, Volume 13: May–October 1782

Papers of John Adams, Volume 13: May–October 1782

Adams, John
Lint, Gregg L.
Taylor, C. James
Hogan, Margaret A.
Rodrique, Jessie May
Claffey, Mary T.
Woodward, Hobson

John Adams was a shrewd observer of the political and diplomatic world in which he functioned and his comments on events and personalities remain the most candid and revealing of any American in Europe. In 1782, Adams focused his energies on raising a loan from Dutch bankers and negotiating a Dutch–American commercial treaty. This volume chronicles Adams’s efforts to achieve these objectives, but it also provides an unparalleled view of eighteenth-century American diplomacy on the eve of a peace settlement ending the eight-year war of the American Revolution.

22.Cover: Papers of John Adams, Volume 14: October 1782 – May 1783

Papers of John Adams, Volume 14: October 1782 – May 1783

Adams, John
Lint, Gregg L.
Taylor, C. James
Woodward, Hobson
Hogan, Margaret A.
Claffey, Mary T.
Sikes, Sara B.
Graham, Judith S.

John Adams reached Paris on October 26, 1782, for the final act of the American Revolution: the peace treaty. This volume chronicles his role in the negotiations and the decision to conclude a peace separate from France.

23.Cover: Papers of John Adams, Volume 15: June 1783 – January 1784

Papers of John Adams, Volume 15: June 1783 – January 1784

Adams, John
Lint, Gregg L.
Taylor, C. James
Karachuk, Robert F.
Woodward, Hobson
Hogan, Margaret A.
Sikes, Sara B.
Claffey, Mary T.
Barzilay, Karen N.

On September 3, 1783, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay signed the definitive Anglo–American peace treaty. Adams and his colleagues strived to establish a viable relationship between the new nation and its largest trading partner but were stymied by rising British anti-Americanism. Adams’s diplomatic efforts were also complicated by domestic turmoil: when bills far exceeding the funds available for their redemption were sent to Europe, he was forced to undertake a dangerous winter journey to the Netherlands to raise a new loan and save the United States from financial disaster.

24.Cover: Papers of John Adams, Volume 16: February 1784 – March 1785

Papers of John Adams, Volume 16: February 1784 – March 1785

Adams, John
Lint, Gregg L.
Taylor, C. James
Karachuk, Robert F.
Woodward, Hobson
Hogan, Margaret A.
Millikan, Neal E.
Sikes, Sara B.
Martin, Sara
Georgini, Sara
Norton, Amanda Mathews
Connolly, James T.

John Adams, with Franklin and Jefferson, formed a joint commission to conclude commercial treaties with the nations of Europe and North Africa. As minister to the Netherlands he raised a new Dutch loan to save America from financial ruin. For the first time since 1778, Adams was no longer engaged in “militia diplomacy.”

25.Cover: Portraits of John Quincy Adams and His Wife

Portraits of John Quincy Adams and His Wife

Oliver, Andrew

25.Cover: Papers of John Adams, Volume 17: April–November 1785

Papers of John Adams, Volume 17: April–November 1785

Adams, John
Lint, Gregg L.
Taylor, C. James
Georgini, Sara
Woodward, Hobson
Sikes, Sara B.
Norton, Amanda Mathews
Martin, Sara

Minister to Britain John Adams was unable to enforce the peace treaty of 1783 and renew Anglo–American commerce. But he saved U.S. credit, petitioned to release impressed sailors, saw the Prussian–American treaty ratified, and laid the groundwork for negotiations with the Barbary States.

26.Cover: Legal Papers of John Adams

Legal Papers of John Adams

Adams, John
Wroth, L. Kinvin
Zobel, Hiller B.

27.Cover: Diary and Autobiographical Writings of Louisa Catherine Adams, Volume 2: 1778–1849

Diary and Autobiographical Writings of Louisa Catherine Adams, Volume 2: 1778–1849

Adams, Louisa Catherine
Graham, Judith S.
Luey, Beth
Hogan, Margaret A.
Taylor, C. James

Born in London in 1775 to a Maryland merchant and his English wife, Louisa recalls her childhood and education in England and France and her courtship with John Quincy. Her diaries reveal a reluctant but increasingly canny political wife. Her husband emerges in a fullness seldom seen—ambitious and exacting, yet passionate, generous, and gallant.

28.Cover: Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 12: March 1797 – April 1798

Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 12: March 1797 – April 1798

Adams Family
Martin, Sara
Taylor, C. James
Millikan, Neal E.
Norton, Amanda Mathews
Woodward, Hobson
Sikes, Sara B.
Lint, Gregg L.
Georgini, Sara

Volume 12 opens with John Adams’s inauguration as president and closes just after details of the XYZ affair become public in America. Through private correspondence, and with the candor and perception expected from the Adamses, family members reveal their concerns for the well-being of the nation and the sustaining force of domestic life.

29.Cover: Papers of John Adams, Volume 18: December 1785 – January 1787

Papers of John Adams, Volume 18: December 1785 – January 1787

Adams, John
Lint, Gregg L.
Martin, Sara
Taylor, C. James
Georgini, Sara
Woodward, Hobson
Sikes, Sara B.
Norton, Amanda Mathews

Volume 18 of the Papers of John Adams chronicles John Adams’ tenure as minister to Great Britain and his joint commission, with Jefferson, to negotiate treaties with Europe and North Africa. Adams found it impossible to do “any Thing Satisfactory” with Britain, and the volume ends with his decision to resign his posts.

31.Cover: Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 13: May 1798 – September 1799

Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 13: May 1798 – September 1799

Adams Family
Martin, Sara
Woodward, Hobson
Minty, Christopher F.
Norton, Amanda Mathews
Millikan, Neal E.
Ross, Emily
Sikes, Sara B.
Georgini, Sara

The candid letters of John, Abigail, and the Adams children offer a rich perspective on life in America during its infancy. The almost 300 letters in volume 13 of Adams Family Correspondence were written during seventeen tumultuous months of John Adams’s presidency, when he depended on surrogates for much of his family correspondence.

32.Cover: Papers of John Adams, Volume 19: February 1787 – May 1789

Papers of John Adams, Volume 19: February 1787 – May 1789

Adams, John
Georgini, Sara
Martin, Sara
Barlow, R. M.
Norton, Amanda Mathews
Millikan, Neal E.
Woodward, Hobson

In John Adams’s last 28 months as a diplomat in Europe, he petitioned to halt British impressment of American sailors, salvaged U.S. credit by contracting two Dutch loans, and finished A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America. He retired to his home but later resumed office as the first vice president of the U.S.

33.Cover: Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 14: October 1799 – February 1801

Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 14: October 1799 – February 1801

Adams Family
Woodward, Hobson
Martin, Sara
Minty, Christopher F.
Norton, Amanda Mathews
Millikan, Neal E.
Fries, Gwen
Georgini, Sara

John and Abigail Adams’s reflections on an emerging nation as they move into the new President’s House in Washington are a highlight of the nearly 280 letters in volume 14. The volume opens with the Adamses’ public and private expressions on the death of George Washington and concludes with John’s defeat in the presidential election of 1800.

34.Cover: Papers of John Adams, Volume 20: June 1789 – February 1791

Papers of John Adams, Volume 20: June 1789 – February 1791

Adams, John
Georgini, Sara
Martin, Sara
Barlow, R. M.
Fries, Gwen
Norton, Amanda Mathews
Millikan, Neal E.
Woodward, Hobson

John Adams’s shaping of the vice presidency dominates this volume of the Papers of John Adams, which chronicles a formative era in American government from June 1789 to February 1791. He held to federalist principles and staked out limits for his executive powers. His letters reveal firsthand the labor of nation-building in an age of constitutions.

35.Cover: Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 15: March 1801 – October 1804

Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 15: March 1801 – October 1804

Adams Family
Woodward, Hobson
Martin, Sara
Minty, Christopher F.
Millikan, Neal E.
Fries, Gwen
Norton, Amanda Mathews
Georgini, Sara
Barlow, R. M.

John and Abigail Adams remained engaged in political life after they left Washington for retirement in Quincy, Mass. A highlight of Volume 15 is a series of letters between Abigail and Thomas Jefferson that debated fundamental questions of the nation’s tumultuous early years. Equally compelling family stories emerge in the volume’s 251 letters.

36.Cover: Papers of John Adams, Volume 21: March 1791 – January 1797

Papers of John Adams, Volume 21: March 1791 – January 1797

Adams, John
Georgini, Sara
Martin, Sara
Barlow, R. M.
Fries, Gwen
Norton, Amanda Mathews
Woodward, Hobson

Vice President John Adams faces a turbulent world of rebellion in this volume of the Papers of John Adams, which chronicles the period from March 1791 to January 1797. From the French Revolution to the negotiation of the Jay Treaty, Adams was involved in key decisions that defined U.S. foreign policy for decades to come.

Sort by title, author, format, publication date, or price »

Back to top

Never Again: Germans and Genocide after the Holocaust, by Andrew I. Port, from Harvard University Press

Recent News

Black lives matter. Black voices matter. A statement from HUP »

From Our Blog

The Burnout Challenge

On Burnout Today with Christina Maslach and Michael P. Leiter

In The Burnout Challenge, leading researchers of burnout Christina Maslach and Michael P. Leiter focus on what occurs when the conditions and requirements set by a workplace are out of sync with the needs of people who work there. These “mismatches,” ranging from work overload to value conflicts, cause both workers and workplaces to suffer