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The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Volume 37: 4 March to 30 June J 802. Edited by Barbara B. Oberg and others. (Princeton and Oxford, Eng.: Princeton University Press, 2010. Pp. 1, 791. $115.00, ISBN 978-0-691-15001-7.)
In 1943 the Thomas Jefferson Bicentennial Commission asked its historian, Julian P. Boyd (1903-1980), librarian of Princeton University, to investigate the processes and resources required to produce a new edition of the writings of Thomas Jefferson. In 1944 Time magazine reported, "The new edition - costs of $344,300 to be shared by the New York Times and Princeton - will consist of 50 richly designed volumes" ("All of Jefferson," Time, 43 [January 3, 1944], 71). The first volume of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson appeared in 1950, followed by nineteen more edited by Boyd and his assistants. The volumes revealed extraordinary care in presenting documents with their original spelling and, wherever possible, noting variants, errors, and corrections. New in degree if not kind were contextual explanations and selected incoming correspondence. The Jefferson project inspired a new generation of superb historical editing, mainly of the papers of political leaders in the early American republic.
Volume 21 served as a cumulative index; all subsequent volumes have had their own. Following Boyd, Charles T. Cuiten served as editor in chief for Volumes 22-23, and John Catanzariti for Volumes 24-28. Between 1983 and...