The Selected Letters

by David B. Mattern, Dolly Madison, Holly C. Shulman

From modest Quaker beginnings as the child of financially insecure parents and the wife of a stolid young lawyer to the excitement and challenges of life as the nation's first First Lady — arguably the most influential role in the American government's formative years — Dolley Payne Todd Madison
(1768-1849) led an extraordinary life. David B. Mattern and Holly C. Shulman have culled a particularly rich selection of her letters to illuminate the story of the woman widely credited with setting the standard for successive generations of Washington's political women. This collection will prove an invaluable resource in current political and historical circles, where the role founding mothers played —
both as supportive family members and as crucial political negotiators — is increasingly recognized and studied.

Organized chronologically into five sections reaching from her correspondence as a young adult in late-eighteenth-century Philadelphia up to the letters of her widowhood in 1840s Washington, and with a helpful contextualizing introduction to each section,
The Selected Letters of Dolley Payne Madison
provides a long-overdue biographical sketch of one of the early republic's most fascinating personalities.

The Selected Letters of Dolley Payne Madison was made possible through a grant from the National Historical Publications & Records Commission

Genres: Nonfiction, History

442 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2003

Reviews

[Meagan]

I would give it a 3.5. The author does a good job giving you a contextual framework for the next set of letters that you're about to read. Dolley isn't the most exciting person in the world (which is cause for the lower rating) but I was surprised by how fond I'd grown of her. Enough so that the last letter in the book brought tears to my eyes. It is so unfortunate her son was such a douchebag. It was fun and bewildering, as always in these old books of letters, to read them mention things off-hand that are huge historical events now or are ways of life unthinkable now. There included are also some letters from actual slaves which were haunting to read.

[Janelle]

DNF
Nothing wrong with them, just need a lot of context and investment, which I don't have.

[Jane Cook]

Great collection, invaluable to my research on this important historical figure.