Woody Holton - Abigail Adams

Praise for
Abigail Adams

A captivating portrait of a reformer both inside and outside the home.... Tracing Adamss life from her childhood as the daughter of a poor parson to her long and sometimes uncertain courtship with John, her joys and sorrows as a mother and her life as the wife of a president, Holtons superb biography shows us a three-dimensional Adams as a forward-thinking woman with a mind of her own.

Publishers Weekly, starred review

Splendid.... What gives Holtons work fresh significance is that his perceptive scouring of the Adams Papers leads him to explore an aspect of Abigails life that other biographers either have overlooked or chosen to ignore.... Every page is packed with detail about Abigails career. Her story is all here.... A notable success and very much worth reading.

Boston Globe

A comprehensive yet highly readable account of Abigails life. Unlike many previous biographies, Holtons depicts Abigail not as a forerunner of modern feminism but as an eighteenth-century woman making the best of a difficult situation.... In the best sections of the book, Holton provides a portrait of Abigail as something of an economic opportunistin the best sense of the term.... Abigail used the proceeds not to underwrite a lavish lifestyle but to guarantee her familys economic future.... Holton suggests that Abigails economic self-assertiveness represented far more than a pragmatic response to her financial situation. Her actions were part and parcel of her longstanding resistance to womens subjugated status, a tangible protest against womens economic and political disenfranchisement.... In Holtons hands, Abigail Adams... emerges as a figure who, long before the 20th century, figured out the connection between economic power and legal rights.

The Washington Post

Holtons biography stands out for its treatment of Abigails entrepreneurship, and if earlier biographers have discussed her proto-feminist opinions, he is often more thorough and nuanced than they were. His skillful use of primary sources, including Adams family correspondence, affords a fuller understanding of events in Abigail Adamss life than we have had. Holtons biography is required reading for anyone interested in the Adams family.

The Wilson Quarterly

[F]resh, entertaining, and exhaustive take on the life of one of the most independent and influential American women of her time.... Holtons considerable biographical talents shine through: Adams and members of her circle emerge as rounded characters, and Holton is an admirable guide to their intellectual and political concerns.... He gives his readers an unforgettable portrait of an American original.

Foreign Affairs

Richly detailed biography of Abigail Adams, sprightly with quotes from letters and chockfull of legendary names.... Compelling biography.... The saucy lady gets a generous treatment in this entertaining gambol through the founding era.

Kirkus Reviews

This eminently readable portrait.... portrays Adams as a model (for her time and place) feminist.... Although many writers have unrealistically idealized the Adamses marriage, Holton paints a more balanced portrait of their relationship.

Booklist

Mr. Holton is to be congratulated in having produced an unforgettable picture of an unforgettable icon of our early history.

Telegram & Gazette

Biographies of Abigail Adams abound. Woody Holton has produced one as good as any and perhaps better than many.

Providence Journal

[B]egins irresistibly.... With so many accounts sentimentalizing the Adamses marriage, Holton provides a refreshing and grittier account of the considerable tensions between this couple.

Minneapolis Star Tribune

This is not your fathers Abigail Adams. Woody Holton has given us the gift of the most fully rounded picture of this most famous of Founding Mothers to date. Entrepreneur, politician, mother, wifeAbigail Adams emerges from Holtons burnished prose as the compelling, complicated person she was. The discoveries he has made, and the insights they have inspired, will shape how we think of revolutionary men and women and partnerships both political and personal.

Catherine Allgor, Professor of History,
University of California Presidential Chair

Insightful, sensitive, and original, Woody Holtons Abigail Adams presents the whole of this remarkable, slave-owning, financially savvy woman who lived, not just wrote, her constant concern for the rights of women. Here is a bounty of fine-grained social history as well as a feast of language, from the eye and the voice of a historian-poet.

Nell Irvin Painter, Edwards Professor of
American History, Emerita, Princeton University
and author of The History of White People

If you were intrigued by the glimpse of Abigail Adams in recent biographies and the HBO series about her husband, you will be fascinated by this new biography. Adams brought her quest for equality into the household, breaking barriers to a woman owning and managing property. Holton unfolds this virtually unknown story in fast-paced chapters that reach a climax in Adamss remarkable will. Jane Austen would have understood her contemporary across the sea. So will todays readers who appreciate that the personal is political.

Alfred Young, author of Masquerade: The Life and Times of Deborah Sampson, Continental Soldier

This is the Adams who deserves a mini-series! A woman who slides right into Twenty-first-Century sense and sensibilities. Abigail Adams is an American hero and Holton brings all the riches of her letters and legacy into literary technicolor.

Ann Compton, White House Correspondent, ABC News

A thorough and thoughtful portrait of a woman who deserves our attention as a heroine of both the American Revolution and the feminist one.

Ira Stoll, author of Samuel Adams: A Life

We always knew that Abigail Adams was feisty, but not until now did we realize how effective her feistiness was. She was a fair match for her husbandno prisoner of precedent himselfand a redoubtable foe of law and traditions that worked to keep women in their accustomed place. Woody Holton has written a book as lively as its subject, and one that will compel a reconsideration of this rambunctious icon of American history.

H. W. Brands, author of Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

WOODY HOLTON

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Copyright 2009 by Abner Linwood Holton

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