Art

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had a genius for letterwriting. Her correspondence is replete with praise for the competence of her sex and with condemnations of slavery on the grounds that all human beings have equal rights. In deed, Page Smith in his two volume John Adams (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday 1962) considered Abigail to be a full partner in her husband's career. Most of Abigail Adams' surviving correspond ence is in the Adams Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society. A good selection of her letters can be found in The Adams Jefferson Letters: the Complete Correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, c.1959) ed. Lester J. Capon.
Mercy Otis Warren (1728-1814) was the most prolific 'woman of the American revolution', with works that viewed history and politics as a struggle between liberty and power. Between 1772 1805, Warren published five plays, three political satires, three books of poetry, a pamphelet critiquing the recently proposed Constitution and one of the most important histories of the American Revolution. Much of her literary work appeared in Poems, Dramatic and Miscellaneous (1790). Her satirical play --The Adulateur first appeared anonymously in the Boston news paper the Massachusetts Spy (1772; pamphlet, Boston, 1773). This work portrayed Thomas Hutchinson, the royal governor of Massachusetts as the character Rapatio, a ruler who sought to crush the love of liberty. Her next play, The Defeat (1773) again featured Rapatio. The Group (1775) satirized the Massachusetts Tories under such evil names as Judge Meager. These satires are available in Plays and Poems of Mercy Otis Warren: Facsimile Reproductions Compiled and with an Introduction by Benjamin Franklin (Delmar, N.Y.: Scholars' Facsimiles and Reprints, 1980). Warren's major work, History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution, Interspersed with Biographical, Political and Moral Observations(B...