The Book of Abigail and John gives us one of American history’s richly rewarding correspondences.

The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family Edited and with an introduction by L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, and Mary-Jo Kline Harvard, 398 pp., $15

John Adams once urged his wife, Abigail, “to consider, if some of your Letters had by any Accident been taken, what a figure they would have made in a Newspaper to be read by the whole World. Some of them . . . would have made you and me, very ridiculous.” In this lovely edition of their correspondence, Adams’ worry becomes our delight: we are treated to a feast of political and domestic fare by two of our most illustrious—and prolific— Founding Parents.

The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family Edited and with an introduction by L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, and Mary-Jo Kline Harvard, 398 pp., $15

John Adams once urged his wife, Abigail, “to consider, if some of your Letters had by any Accident been taken, what a figure they would have made in a Newspaper to be read by the whole World. Some of them . . . would have made you and me, very ridiculous.” In this lovely edition of their correspondence, Adams’ worry becomes our delight: we are treated to a feast of political and domestic fare by two of our most illustrious—and prolific— Founding Parents.