THOMAS JEFFERSON DREAMS OF SALLY HEMINGS; A Novel

New York: Viking Press, 2016. First Edition, First Printing. Cloth and boards. Very Fine/Very Fine. SIGNED by the AUTHOR on the title page, thick 8vo, charcoal quarter cloth with gold lettering on spine over charcoal boards, lettered dust jacket (unclipped) designed by Lynn Buckley, protected by a quality archival clear plastic sleeve, [xii] + 610 pages. 1 Lb. 14 Oz. Stephen O'Connor (born 1952) is an American writer of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. His most recent novel THOMAS JEFFERSON DREAMS OF SALLY HEMINGS has been published by Viking (2016). It deals with Jefferson's protracted affair with his slave Sally, the half-sister of his deceased wife and friend of his daughter.--Wiki John Quincy Adams once savaged Jefferson in a poem that mentioned "dusky Sally," so why should a brilliant modern author hold back? Sally was a half sister of TJ's deceased wife; highly attractive (if a cartoon depicting her with her hair wrapped has any value); and one of Sally's lovely sisters was placed with James Madison, who lived at the foot of Monticello. Jefferson was one of the largest slaveholders in Virginia, but he repeatedly condemned slavery in the harshest terms as a national problem akin to "holding a wolf by the ears." Plausibly, TJ failed to emancipate all of his slaves near the end of his life--only freeing Sally & her children--because his spendthrift ways and repeatedly poor returns on agricultural products left him destitute with slaves as his principal asset. Such complexities are a rich field for this highly talented author who follows paths previously blazed by Barbara Chase Riboud's, Sally Hemmings (1979), and Annette Gordon-Reed in The Hemingses of Monticello. SIGNED & in EXCEPTIONAL CONDITION internally & externally! No remainder markings.