Coverage

The Thomas Jefferson’s Libraries project makes available to scholars, teachers, students and members of the public information on the books Thomas Jefferson owned, desired to own, read, recommended or presented to others throughout his lifetime.

This database currently includes over 5,000 book entries and is expected to grow to between 8,000 to 9,000 entries as this project continues. These book entries are drawn from key primary sources such as Jefferson’s manuscript book lists, print compilations, auction catalogs, Jefferson's memorandum books and his correspondence.

At this stage, the project focuses primarily on the following key sources:


There are no known surviving Jefferson manuscript catalogues listing the books he had in his first library at Shadwell before it was destroyed by fire in February 1770. Instead, a Shadwell Library Reconstructed list of books has been compiled using the following sources:


We are also transcribing other book lists drawn up by Jefferson and found in his papers. There are numerous such lists in his extensive correspondence & personal papers, but only the following are available under Browse at this point in the project:


Lastly, we have attempted to reconstruct subcollections within Jefferson's library based on internal evidence found within booklist manuscripts and Jefferson's correspondence, and these are:



For more details on sources, see Book Lists.

For additional lists to be added to the database, see Future Additions.


Presently, only the Wythe Library List transcription has embedded links to book entries in Jefferson's library on LibraryThing. Work is continuing to embed similar links in all of the transcription lists available on this site.

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