As he did for Abraham Lincoln and John Quincy Adams, award-winning biographer Fred Kaplan offers a fresh, illuminating look at the life of Thomas Jefferson and his contributions as a writer. In this unique biography, Fred Kaplan emphasizes Thomas Jefferson's genius with language and his ability to use the power of words to inspire and shape a nation. A man renowned for many talents, writing was one of the major activities of the statemen's life, though much of his best, most influential writing-with the exception of the letters he wrote up to his death, numbering approximately 100, 000-was done by 1789, when Jefferson was just forty-six. All of his works-from his earliest correspondence; his essays and proclamations, including A Summary View of British America, The Declaration of Independence, and Notes on the State of Virginia; his religious and scientific writings; his inaugural addresses; his addresses to Indian nations; and his exchanges with Washington, Madison, Hamilton, John and Abigail Adams, and dear friends such as Maria Cosway-demonstrate his remarkable intelligence, prescient wisdom, and literary flair and reveal the man in all his complex and controversial brilliance. In His Masterly Pen, readers will find a new appreciation of Jefferson as a whole, of his strengths and weaknesses, and particularly of the degree to which his writing skills-which James Madison admired as "the shining traces of his pen"-are key to his personality and public career. Though Jefferson could wield his pen with unrivaled power, he was also a master of using words to both reveal and conceal from others and himself the complications, the inconsistencies, and the contradictions between his principles and his policies, between his head and his heart, and between his optimistic view of human nature and the realities of his personal situation and the world he lived in.

His Masterly Pen - A Biography of Jefferson the Writer

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) est peut-être le romancier le plus populaire que le monde ait connu. Son succès fut immense et, de son vivant, il était en Angleterre aussi célèbre que la reine Victoria. Il eut une enfance relativement malheureuse _ père irresponsable emprisonné pour dettes, mère frivole, travail forcé dans une fabrique de cirage _ qui devait, des années plus tard, ressurgir dans les personnages inoubliables d'Olivier Twist, de David Copperfield, des Grandes Espérances, mais il perce en littérature dès 1835 avec les Esquisses de Boz, puis M. Pickwick. De son goût pour le théâtre sont nées ses fameuses lectures publiques (qu'il donna jusqu'à sa mort); de son goût _ que certains ont qualifié de macabre _ pour les bas-fonds, les hôpitaux, les morgues, l'extraordinaire peinture du Londres sordide et fascinant de l'époque victorienne que constitue presque toute son oeuvre.L'originalité extrême du livre de Fred Kaplan vient de ce que ses thèses _ sur les rapports de Dickens, souvent ambigus, avec ses proches, sur le caractère autobiographique, tout aussi ambigu, de ses personnages, sur le destin de son mariage et sa liaison avec Ellen Ternan, sur sa véhémente dénonciation des Etats-Unis après son voyage de 1840 et son soutien à la révolution de 1848, etc. _ découlent toutes de la lecture et de l'utilisation _ toujours intelligente _ d'une énorme masse de lettres, tant de Dickens lui-même que de ses familiers _ acteurs glorieux ou obscurs de la scène victorienne.Professeur d'anglais à Queens College et à la City University of New York, Fred Kaplan est l'auteur d'une biographie de Carlyle, mais c'est à Dickens qu'il a consacré l'essentiel de son temps et de son énergie _ depuis un premier article paru il y a trente ans, suivi, en 1975, par un essai sur Dickens et le mesmérisme. La présente biographie est le couronnement de ce travail.

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