Jacobs has also relied on correspondence in her newest book to paint a more fleshed-out portrait of a First Lady best known for, well, a letter. Jacobs drew in part on a cache of previously unpublished letters from the essayist’s publisher. Looking to stretch, she decided to focus on Mary Wollstonecraft, the 18th-century feminist (and mother of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley) who wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. “I’ve always loved character-it comes with being an English major at Penn-and I realized, ‘Wow, I love writing biography!’” she says. But it was her third title-a biographical sketch of film director Preston Sturges, a cult favorite among cineastes-that got her interested in exploring creative lives. Next came an analytical look at the films of Woody Allen. The title represents the third biography by Jacobs, who started her writing career after earning a master’s degree in film studies from Columbia.Īfter penning movie reviews for The Soho Weekly News and The Village Voice, she published her first book in 1977 it detailed the emergence of an auteur culture. Jacobs, 65, has just released her latest book, Dear Abigail: The Intimate Lives and Revolutionary Ideas of Abigail Adams and Her Two Remarkable Sisters (Ballantine Books). And even though she and John were very close and shared many viewpoints, she definitely had her own mind.” For one thing, she was extremely loyal to her family-especially her two sisters. “A lot of her life wasn’t connected to John’s.

But to author Diane Jacobs CW’70, these portraits are incomplete. Anyone with the most cursory interest in early American history has some knowledge of Abigail, and television viewers have still more, thanks to the 2008 miniseries John Adams, starring Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney.

The writer in question is, of course, Abigail Adams, wife of John, Founding Father and second president of the United States. “I find the knowledg of My having a Letter descriptive of your dress and reception … will introduce me anywhere, ” her sister teased in 1785, impressed by her success as the wife of the new nation’s first ambassador to England. Class of ’70 | “I really think that your Letters are much better worth preserving than mine,”the woman’s husband wrote in 1776, complimenting her reporting skills.

Dear Abigail by Diane Jacobs