Often viewed narrowly as the wife of John Adams and the mother of John Quincy Adams, Abigail Adams was an important literary and historical figure in her own right. In this luminous reinterpretation of a life and a life's work, Edith B. Gelles recognizes Abigail Adams as a significant author of an era when it was not respectable for women to write publicly. Gelles unveils a little-known life by examining Adams's collected letters - "the best account that exists from the pre- to the post-Revolutionary period in America of a woman's life and world". The correspondence provides unusual access to Adam's private life, describing social conventions, detailing Adam's influence on her husband ("remember the ladies") and recording her reactions to political affairs and historic figures of early America. This, the first and only book to examine Abigail Adams's writings from the dual standpoints of biography and literary analysis, establishes her independent reputation and enshrines her within the pantheon of early American writers.