Thomas Jefferson: Author of America.

HITCHENS, Christopher.

$700.00

Item Number: 69009

New York: Harper Collins, 2005.

First edition of this biography of Thomas Jefferson. Octavo, original half cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the title page, “For Comrade Mike Christopher Hitchens.” Fine in a fine dust jacket.

In this unique biography of Thomas Jefferson, leading journalist and social critic Christopher Hitchens offers a startlingly new and provocative interpretation of our Founding Father—a man conflicted by power who wrote the Declaration of Independence and acted as ambassador to France yet yearned for a quieter career in the Virginia legislature. A masterly writer, Jefferson was an awkward public speaker. A professed proponent of emancipation, he elided the issue of slavery from the Declaration of Independence and continued to own human property. A reluctant candidate, he left an indelible presidential legacy. With intelligence, insight, eloquence, and wit, Hitchens gives us an artful portrait of a complex, formative figure and his turbulent era.