George Washington : a life in books

409 Pages·2017·5.853 MB·English

by  Hayes, Kevin J.

GEORGE WASHINGTON
A LIFE IN BOOKS

GEORGE
WASHINGTON
A LIFE IN BOOKS
KEVIN J. HAYES
1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hayes, Kevin J., author.
Title: George Washington : a life in books / Kevin J. Hayes.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2017. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016046056 (print) | LCCN 2016048179 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780190456672 (hardback) | ISBN 9780190456689 (updf) |
ISBN 9780190456696 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Washington, George, 1732–1799—Books and reading. |
Presidents—United States—Biography. |
BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Presidents & Heads of State. |
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Literary. |
HISTORY / United States / Revolutionary Period (1775–1800).
Classification: LCC E312.17 .H397 2017 (print) | LCC E312.17 (ebook) |
DDC 973.4/1092 [B]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016046056
Title page illustration: George Washington
Artist: Gilbert Stuart, 1796; oil on canvas
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; acquired as a
gift to the nation through the generosity of the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Edwards Brothers Malloy, United States of America
for my parents

contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xv
1. Meditations and Contemplations 1
2. Every Boy His Own Teacher 16
3. Exemplars 31
4. Travel Writing 46
5. The Journal of Major George Washington 62
6. A Memorial Containing a Summary View of Facts 78
7. Home and Garden 91
8. George Washington, Bibliographer 110
9. The Education of John Parke Custis 125
10. Revolutionary Pamphlets 143
11. Common Sense and Independence 157
12. A Green Baize Bookcase 173
13. Planning for Retirement 189
14. Haven of History 207
15. The Slave, the Quaker, and the Panopticon 228
16. Politics and the Picaresque 242
17. Presidential Patronage and the Development of
American Literature 257
18. Official Letters to the Honorable American Congress 274
vii
viii Contents
19. Farewell Address 287
20. Home at Last 299
Notes 317
Sources 367
Index 371
preface
After I parked my bicycle and pitched my tent at a roadside campground
in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, a man with a grizzled mous-
tache stepped from a camper parked nearby. He asked me inside for tea
and bickies, as Australians call cookies. Never one to refuse another’s hos-
pitality, I accepted. As we sat ourselves at the tea table inside his motor
home, he introduced me to his wife, and I introduced myself. They could
tell by my accent that I was from America. He told me they had motored
around Australia countless times but had never traveled overseas. Both
admitted they knew little about the United States. Practically the only
American they could recall by name was George Washington, so they
asked me to tell them more about him.
This incident occurred during a five-month solo bicycle tour of
Australia, my last great adventure before starting graduate school at the
University of Delaware. In other words, it occurred before I began study-
ing colonial American literature with the world’s leading expert in the
field, before I became fascinated with the history of books, before I de-
cided to devote my professional career to the subject of early American
intellectual life. Asked to provide an impromptu biography of George
Washington, I struggled for something to say. Not having studied the his-
tory of the American Revolution since—gulp!—the eighth grade, I was
hard-pressed to fill in the facts for my kindly Australian hosts.
Gathering my thoughts, meagre as they were, I mentioned the time
Washington crossed the Delaware. An iconic moment in American his-
tory, the episode was familiar to me mainly because Mom and Dad had
bought me a scale model of the event based on the renowned painting by
Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze. I can still smell the enamel and glue I used to
reconstruct that singular moment in American history. I nearly exhausted
my supply of Fiery Red to paint the lining of Washington’s cape as it
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