Table of Contents

Preface
1. Meditations and Contemplations
2. Every Boy His Own Teacher
3. Exemplars
4. Travel Writing
5. The Journal of Major George Washington
6. A Memorial Containing a Summary View of Facts
7. Home and Garden
8. George Washington, Bibliographer
9. The Education of John Parke Custis
10. Revolutionary Pamphlets
11. Common Sense and Independence
12. A Green Baize Bookcase
13. Planning for Retirement
14. Haven of History
15. The Slave, the Quaker, and the Panopticon
16. Politics and the Picaresque
17. Presidential Patronage and the Development of American Literature
18. Official Letters to the Honorable American Congress
19. Farewell Address
20. Home at Last
Sources
Index

About the Author

Kevin J. Hayes, Emeritus Professor at the University of Central Oklahoma, now lives and writes in Toledo, Ohio. He is the author of several books including The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson (Oxford, 2008) and A Journey through American Literature (Oxford, 2012). He is the recipient of the Virginia Library History Award presented by the Library of Virginia and the Virginia Center for the Book. He is also
the recipient of research fellowships from the Boston Athenaeum, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Lilly Library, the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, and the Virginia Historical Society.

Reviews

"In this new work, Kevin J. Hayes shatters the myth of an ignorant, unread Washington and does something even more difficult: Hayes not only has tracked down new discoveries in one of the most studied American lives, but he reveals a much more human portrait of the great man than most biographies have been able to reveal. Hayes makes George Washington even more real, and more significant... Kevin J. Hayes's study will reward the reader with a newfound respect
for our first president and imparts a renewed sense of the sustained curiosity of truly great leaders. It is a book even John Adams might have enjoyed." -- The Weekly Standard
"This is a highly enjoyable and informative book. For anyone interested in the primary documentation of the lives of the Founding Fathers or for anyone wishing to be an informed visitor to Mount Vernon, this is essential reading." -- Journal of the American Revolution
Winner of The 2018 George Washington Prize