Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, in Four Volumes.

8vo. Brown leather spine and corners, five raised spine bands with gilt titles and decorations in compartments and black rules, hand-tooled borders in blind along edges of leather on boards, marbled paper over boards, gilt titles, marbled endpapers, red edges, steel engraved frontispiece portrait of Thomas Jefferson in first volume (from the famous painting by Gilbert Stuart), between the memoir and correspondence sections are two fold-outs comprising a complete facsimile of the draft of the Declaration of Independence with Jefferson's edits. The first published collection of Thomas Jefferson's writings, edited by his grandson and executor. Originally published in 1829 by F. Carr and Co. in Charlottesville, Virginia, and reissued in a new edition the following year (the version offered here), this work is scarce in any edition, and is often found without the fold-outs of the Declaration. The memoir is valuable as a firsthand account of Jefferson's time as a revolutionary and statesman, and the correspondence is extensive, covering over fifty years of his life and career, concluding just ten days before his death in 1826. Perhaps the most interesting element of this set, though, is the miscellanies, which include his thoughts on complex matters of state such as the separation of powers, the role of information in democracy, the nature of public discourse, and the challenges of international relations.