In 1998, the Modern Library editorial board designated The Education of Henry Adams the most important twentieth-century American work of nonfiction. The memoir of a descendent of two U.S. presidents, the book became a bestseller upon its posthumous publication and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Unbeknownst to many readers, then and now, the work by which Adams is best remembered represents the culmination of a long career which produced three biographies, Life of Albert Gallatin (1879), Life of John Randolph (1881), Life of George Cabot Lodge (1911), two novels Democracy (1880), Esther (1884), a nine-volume history of the early national period, The History of the United States during the Ad

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