"Mysterious Obligation": Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia

Abstract

r lHOMAS JEFFERSON, by any standard, is major writer of the early Republic, and his one book, Notes on the State of Virginia, has been accepted universally as both an American classic and vital contribution to the political and scientific thought of the eighteenth century. Yet the same book has been virtually ignored as literary text, and is true even though Notes is prototype for understanding literary involvement in post-Revolutionary America. Critical neglect began in Jefferson's own seeming disregard. He once threatened to burn the entire first edition of Notes-some two hundred copies privately printed at considerable expense. Do not view me as an author, and attached to what he has written, he warned James Madison. I am neither.' Calling his book private communication unfit for distribution, he tried hard to prevent its general publication.2 In subsequent letters, Notes became a poor crayon,'' this trifle, nothing more than the measure of shadow, and a bad book . . . the author of which has no other merit than that of thinking as little of it as any man in the world can.3