The Adams Women: Abigail and Louisa Adams, Their Sisters and Daughters

New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. First Edition. Hard Cover. Near Fine/Near Fine. 6x1x9. First edition. Jacket edges worn. 1987 Hard Cover. viii, 310 pp. aul Nagel's Descent from Glory was an extraordinary critical and popular success, a Book-of-the-Month Club main selection hailed by reviewers as "magnificent" (The New York Times Book Review) and "splendid" (The Christian Science Monitor). That book focused on the men in the Adams family,but many readers--and Nagel himself--felt that the most interesting and stirring part of the Adams family saga was the story of the women. Here at last is the book many readers urged Nagel to write: the full story of some of the most interesting and important and articulate women in American history. This is no mere sequel to the first book; it is an attempt to do justice in their own right to some extraordinary individuals in their own right who happened to be women and whose personal lives and outlooks have been eclipsed by the famous men who surrounded them. Nagel portrays his subjects as they saw themselves and each other. This is possible because of the abundant comment and confession they shared with each other, much of it surviving in the Adams Papers. They spoke to one another about their existence with a frankness and detail which is unmatched.