Adams Bibliography

Numerous publications on the Adamses consider individual family members or specific aspects of their lives. The following list offers a sampling to help you get started.

First Generation

Abigail Adams (1744-1818)

• Abigail Adams, by Woody Holton. New York: Free Press, 2009. 
• Portia: The World of Abigail Adams, by Edith B. Gelles. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995.
• Abigail Adams: A Biography, by Phyllis Lee Levin. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987.

John Adams (1735-1826)

• Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents That Forged the Republic, by Lindsay M. Chervinsky. New York: Oxford University Press, 2024. 
• The Education of John Adams, by Richard B. Bernstein. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. 
• Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, by Gordon Wood. New York: Penguin Press, 2017. 
• John Adams and the Fear of American Oligarchy, by Luke Mayville. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016.
• John Adams, by David McCullough. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001. 
• John Adams and the Spirit of Liberty, by C. Bradley Thompson. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1998.
• Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams, by Joseph J. Ellis. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993.

Second Generation

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848)

• John Quincy Adams: A Man for the Whole People, by Randall Woods. New York: Dutton, 2024.
• The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams, by Phyllis Lee Levin. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2015. 
• The Birth of Modern Politics: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and the Election of 1828, by Lynn Hudson Parsons. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
• John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy, by Samuel Flagg Bemis. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949; repr., New York: W. W. Norton, 1973; repr., Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981.
• John Quincy Adams and the Union, by Samuel Flagg Bemis. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1956; repr., Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980.

Louisa Catherine Adams (1775-1852)

• Louisa: The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams, by Louisa Thomas. New York: Penguin Press, 2016. 
• A Traveled First Lady: Writings of Louisa Catherine Adams, ed. Margaret A. Hogan and C. James Taylor. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014.
• Louisa Catherine: The Other Mrs. Adams, by Margery Heffron and edited by David L. Michelmore. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014.
• Diary and Autobiographical Writings of Louisa Catherine Adams, ed. Judith S. Graham, Beth Luey, and others. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013; 2 vols.
• Mrs. Adams in Winter: A Journey in the Last Days of Napoleon, by Michael O’Brien. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010. 

Third Generation

Charles Francis Adams (1807-1886)

• Blue and Gray Diplomacy: A History of Union and Confederate Foreign Relations, by Howard Jones. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2010.
• Charles Francis Adams, 1807–1886, by Martin Duberman. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961.

Fourth Generation

Brooks Adams (1848-1915)

• Brooks Adams: A Biography, by Arthur F. Beringause. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955. 

Charles Francis Adams (1835-1915)

• Charles Francis Adams, Jr., 1835-1915: The Patrician at Bay, by Edward Chase Kirkland. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965. 

Mariane "Clover" Hooper Adams (1842-1885)

• Clover Adams: A Gilded and Heartbreaking Life, by Natalie Dykstra. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012. 

Henry Adams (1838-1918)

• A Political Companion to Henry Adams, edited by Natalie Fuehrer Taylor. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2010.
• The Education of Henry Adams: A Centennial Version, edited by Edward Chalfant and Conrad Edick Wright. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2008.
• Henry Adams and the Need To Know, edited by William Merrill Decker & Earl N. Harbert. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2005. 
• Henry Adams and the Southern Question, by Michael O’Brien. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2005.
• Henry Adams, by Ernest Samuels. Abridged edition. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1989.
• A Biography of Henry Adams, by Edward Chalfant. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1982-2001; 3 vols.

The Adams Family

• The Problem of Democracy: The Presidents Adams Confront the Cult of Personality, by Nancy Isenberg and Andrew Burstein. New York: Penguin Books, 2020.
• Household Gods: The Religious Lives of the Adams Family, by Sara Georgini. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. 
• A Companion to John Adams and John Quincy Adams, edited by David Waldstreicher. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.
• First Family: Abigail and John, by Joseph J. Ellis. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010.
• Abigail and John: Portrait of a Marriage, by Edith B. Gelles. New York: Morrow, 2009. 
• My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams, edited by Margaret A. Hogan and C. James Taylor. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007.
• A Genealogical History of Henry Adams, of Braintree, Mass., and His Descendents; Also John Adams, of Cambridge, Mass., 1632-1897, edited by Andrew N. Adams. Rutland, VT: Tuttle, 1898.