Larry McMurtry, Washington Post Book World
Brilliant, provocative. . . . A biography no one interested in the man or his times should miss.


Ray A. Billington
Thoroughly fascinating, opening vistas into Jefferson's life and thought that were fresh and exciting. A superbly written book, sparkling with new information and interpretation.


Wallace Stegner
Powerful and touching. . . . The story of an intimate life hidden from and at odds with the public life. . . . Brodie has humanized Jefferson without in the least diminishing him.


Page Smith
An extraordinary human drama told with great insight, compassion, and literary skill. What history should be but seldom is.


Book Description
An ambitious, perceptive portrayal of a complex man, this best-selling biography broke new ground in its exploration of Jefferson's inner life. Here for the first time we meet Jefferson as a man of feeling and passion. With a novelist's skill and meticulous scholarship, Fawn M. Brodie shows Jefferson as he wrestled with issues of revolution, religion, power, race, and love--ambivalences that exerted a subtle but powerful influence on his political writing and his decision making. The portrait that results adds a whole new depth to those of the past.


About the Author
The late Fawn M. Brodie was professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of several other noted biographies, including The Devil Drives: A Life of Sir Richard Burton, also published in Norton paperback.

FROM THE PUBLISHER