Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

The lively, authoritative, New York Times bestselling biography of Abigail Adams.

This is the life of Abigail Adams, wife of patriot John Adams, who became the most influential woman in Revolutionary America. Rich with excerpts from her personal letters, Dearest Friend captures the public and private sides of this fascinating woman, who was both an advocate of slave emancipation and a burgeoning feminist, urging her husband to “Remember the Ladies” as he framed the laws of their new country.

John and Abigail Adams married for love. While John traveled in America and abroad to help forge a new nation, Abigail remained at home, raising four children, managing their estate, and writing letters to her beloved husband. Chronicling their remarkable fifty-four-year marriage, her blossoming feminism, her battles with loneliness, and her friendships with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, Dearest Friend paints a portrait of Abigail Adams as an intelligent, resourceful, and outspoken woman.

Lynne Withey's books include Voyages of Discovery: Captain James Cook and the Exploration of the Pacific (1987) and Grand Tours and Cook's Tours: A History of Leisure Travel, 1750-1915 (1997). She has taught history at the University of Iowa, Boston University, and the University of California at Berkeley, and is now the associate director of the University of California Press. She lives in San Francisco.