Complete Writings and Selected Correspondence of John Dickinson - (The Complete Writings and Selected Correspondence of John Dickinson) (Hardcover)

About the Book

In 1767, John Dickinson began publishing his twelve Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, which earned him international celebrity as the leader of the American resistance to Britain. This volume documents the overwhelming public response around the Atlantic World to these writings. It also includes his notes from fascinating legal cases and correspondence related to his courtship of Mary Norris.

Book Synopsis

In 1767, John Dickinson began publishing his twelve Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, which earned him international celebrity as the leader of the American resistance to Britain. They educated Americans about their rights and how to defend them without violence. Importantly, they also taught the colonists to unite and understand themselves first and foremost as Americans rather than as Britons. He followed with letters on religious liberty in the Episcopal controversy and America's first patriotic song, the "Liberty Song." This volume documents the overwhelming public response around the Atlantic World to his writings. It was largely positive, with readers paying tribute to him in numerous ways, beginning with the Massachusetts circular letter to the other colonies advocating a nonimportation agreement. Most of the negative responses came from Dickinson's enemy from the 1764 royal government controversy in Pennsylvania, Joseph Galloway, who orchestrated a smear campaign against "the Farmer." Dickinson's legal notes from this period include several interesting cases, such as his defense of a mixed-race servant woman charged with infanticide. Although there is limited extant correspondence, it includes letters concerning his courtship of his future wife, Mary Norris.

About the Author

JANE E. CALVERT is a historian of early American intellectual history and the foremost expert on John Dickinson. She founded the John Dickinson Writings Project (JDP) in 2010 after publication of Quaker Constitutionalism and the Political Thought of John Dickinson (2009). Most recently, she published Penman of the Founding: A Biography of John Dickinson (2024), made possible by the work of the JDP.

JOHN DICKINSON (November 8, 1732-February 14, 1808) is known as the "Penman of the Revolution." He served as a delegate for Pennsylvania in the Continental Congress (1774-1776) and later as a delegate from Delaware in the Constitutional Convention of 1787.