Jefferson, Thomas:

$37,500 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

[AUTOGRAPH LETTER, SIGNED, FROM THOMAS JEFFERSON TO THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH, SENDING A RECOMMENDED LIST OF BOOKS AND COURSE OF STUDY IN PREPARATION FOR THE BAR REQUESTED BY RANDOLPH'S COLLEAGUE, JOHN ... An autograph letter, signed, from Thomas Jefferson at Monticello, to his son-in-law, Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., responding to a request from John Bowyer "to furnish a list of the books proper to prepare his son for the bar." John Bowyer (1767-1851) of Rockbridge County, Virginia, was, at the time, serving with Randolph in the Virginia House of Delegates in Richmond and apparently had communicated the request via his colleague, Randolph. As Mark Dimunation observes, it was not unusual for Jefferson's contemporaries to seek out "intellectual counsel and reading advice from the great mind of the American Enlightenment," and, more often than not, Jefferson was happy to oblige. In 1771, when Robert Skipwith asked his brother-in-law-to-be for a list of choice books with which to furnish his modest library, Jefferson got carried away, compiling a list of some 148 titles, which he valued at £107.10, some £77 over the £30 limit initially set by Skipwith (and revealing perhaps Jefferson's own tendency, albeit inadvertently, of acquiring more books than he could afford). Indeed, Jefferson drew up a variety of book lists throughout his life, whether for his own library, for the Library of Congress, for the University of Virginia, or for one of his many correspondents. Among the many recomme

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