A definitive new volume of the retirement papers of Thomas Jefferson This volume’s 601 documents show Jefferson dealing with various challenges. He is injured in a fall at Monticello, and his arm is still in a sling months later when he narrowly escapes drowning during a solitary horseback ride. Jefferson obtains temporary financial relief by transferring a $20,000 debt from the Bank of the United States to the College of William and Mary. Aided by a review of expenditures by the University of Virginia that uncovers no serious discrepancies, Jefferson and the Board of Visitors obtain a further $60,000 loan that permits construction to begin on the Rotunda. Jefferson drafts but apparently does not send John Adams a revealing letter on religion. He exchanges long letters discussing the Supreme Court with Justice William Johnson, and he writes to friends about France’s 1823 invasion of Spain. Jefferson also helps prepare a list of recommended books for the Albemarle Library Society. In November 1822, Jefferson’s grandson Francis Eppes marries Mary Elizabeth Randolph. He gives the newlyweds his mansion at Poplar Forest and visits it for the last time the following May. In a letter to James Monroe, Jefferson writes and then cancels “my race is near it’s term, and not nearer, I assure you, than I wish.”

The 584 documents in this volume cover the period from 19 January to 31 August 1817, during which Jefferson devotes much time and energy to founding Central College, the predecessor of the University of Virginia. In May 1817, at its first official meeting, the college's Board of Visitors authorizes land purchases and a subscription campaign that eventually raises more than $44,000. Jefferson also prepares a legal brief for his chancery suit against the directors of the Rivanna Company. After years of disagreements and failed negotiations, he composes and revises a legal statement of his claim to the property in dispute. Although the complaint is submitted to the court in May 1817, the case is not settled until December 1819. In March 1817 Jefferson’s friend James Monroe begins his first term as president. During the summer Jefferson learns of the death of two friends, Madame de Staël Holstein and Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours. Late in the summer he visits Natural Bridge with two of his granddaughters. Jefferson continues to purchase books from Europe with the assistance of George Ticknor, and Stephen Cathalan helps him restock his wine cellar and pantry. Even though Jefferson answers his voluminous correspondence selectively, he still chafes under the burden.

The 637 documents in this volume span 1 February to 31 August 1819. As a founding member of the University of Virginia Board of Visitors, Jefferson helps to obtain builders for the infant institution, responds to those seeking professorships, and orchestrates the establishment of a classical preparatory school in Charlottesville. In a letter to Vine Utley, Jefferson details his daily regimen of a largely vegetarian diet, bathing his feet in cold water each morning, and horseback riding. Continuing to indulge his wide-ranging intellectual interests, Jefferson receives publications on the proper pronunciation of Greek and discusses the subject himself in a letter to John Adams. Jefferson also experiences worrying and painful events, including hailstorm damage at his Poplar Forest estate, a fire in the North Pavilion at Monticello, the illness of his slave Burwell Colbert, and a fracas in which Jefferson's grandson-in-law Charles Bankhead stabs Jefferson's grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph on court day in Charlottesville. Worst of all, Jefferson's financial problems greatly increase when the bankruptcy of his friend Wilson Cary Nicholas leaves Jefferson responsible for $20,000 in notes he had endorsed for Nicholas.

"In the second volume of his planned trilogy that will recast the history of the university in a fresh and surprising light, Adam R. Nelson aims to show how knowledge, which had been commodified starting in the late eighteenth century, became industrialized in the nineteenth century. Nelson explains how the idea of the modern university arose from a set of institutional and ideological reforms designed to foster the mass production and mass consumption of knowledge--that is, the industrialization of ideas. Fusing the history of higher education with the history of capitalism, Nelson suggests that this "marketization" of knowledge propelled the institutionalization of the university, far earlier than previously understood"--

A new definitive volume of the retirement papers of Thomas Jefferson This volume’s 627 documents feature a vast assortment of topics. Jefferson writes of his dread of “a doting old age.” He inserts an anonymous note in the Richmond Enquirer denying that he has endorsed a candidate for the next presidential election, and he publishes two letters in that newspaper under his own name to refute a Federalist claim that he once benefited by overcharging the United States Treasury. Jefferson does not reply to unsolicited letters seeking his opinion on constitutional matters, judicial review, and a call for universal white male suffrage in Virginia. Fearing that it would set a dangerous precedent, he declines appointment as patron of a new society “for the civilisation of the Indians.” Jefferson is also asked to comment on proposed improvements to stoves, lighthouses, telescopes, and navigable balloons. Citing his advanced age and stiffened wrist, he avoids detailed replies and allows his complaint to John Adams about the volume of incoming correspondence to be leaked to the press in hopes that strangers will stop deluging them both with letters. Jefferson approves of the growth of Unitarianism and predicts that “there is not a young man now living in the US. who will not die an Unitarian.”

The Retirement Series documents Jefferson's written legacy between his return to private life on 4 March 1809 and his death on 4 July 1826. During this period Jefferson founded the University of Virginia and sold his extraordinary library to the nation, but his greatest legacy from these years is the astonishing depth and breadth of his correspondence with statesmen, inventors, scientists, philosophers, and ordinary citizens on topics spanning virtually every field of human endeavor.--From publisher description.

The Retirement Series documents Jefferson's written legacy between his return to private life on 4 March 1809 and his death on 4 July 1826. During this period Jefferson founded the University of Virginia and sold his extraordinary library to the nation, but his greatest legacy from these years is the astonishing depth and breadth of his correspondence with statesmen, inventors, scientists, philosophers, and ordinary citizens on topics spanning virtually every field of human endeavor.--From publisher description.