Excerpt from Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society: Seventh Series, Volume 1 Like many eminent men of his time, Thomas J effer son was in the habit of preserving every scrap of writing which came into his hands, and of keeping Copies of all of his own letters. Consequently he left at his death a very great mass of letters and papers of priceless value for biographical and historical purposes, together with many which would not now be thought worth pre serving. Subsequently the whole collection was roughly divided into two parts, one comprising documents mainly relating to his public life, and the other letters and papers mainly connected with his private and personal relations. By an Act of Congress, approved April 12, 1848, the first portion was acquired by the United States, and is now deposited in the State Department at Washington. The second portion was presented to the Historical Society, in June, 1898, by Mr. Jefferson's great-grandson, Thomas Jefferson Coolidge; and it is from this latter portion of the Jefferson papers that the letters printed in this volume have been for the most part selected. Few of them are of a political character or deal with public affairs; but they very clearly illustrate y phases of Jefferson's character, and show the range and variety of his interests in his more private life. The volume is almost equally divided between letters written by Jefferson himself and letters written to himxxxiv preface. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.