Rayner's Life of Thomas Jefferson was published just eight years after Jefferson's death. It is a fervent story, filled with the republican spirit. It was intended to inspire the reader with a full appreciation of the distinguished deeds and writings of one of the great political leaders of the previous millennium by demonstrating how most of the major facets of America's new republican society originated in measures proposed by Thomas Jefferson. It has been much neglected of late, and rarely if ever cited in modern bibliographies of the biographies of Jefferson, perhaps because of its unabashed partisanship and certain deficiencies which this edition endeavors to correct. Nevertheless, it is an interesting, even exciting story that focuses on the role of republican principles in the life and thought of Jefferson. It details the struggles between the republican and anti-republican forces in the formation of the American republic, and as such has a sense of immediacy that is often absent in later biographies of Jefferson. Rayner filled his biographical account with a large number of selections from the writings of Jefferson based on the then recently published 1829 edition of those writings by Jefferson's grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph. Mr. Randolph's edition is not held in very high regard by scholars because of the many editorial changes he made in the original documents -- a further reason, perhaps, why Rayner's Life has been mostly ignored. But Rayner's emphasis on Jefferson's writings for the historical information they contain makes his Life a good companion to Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government, which focuses on Jefferson's writings for the political principles they contain. It puts those quotations in their historical context and thereby fosters a deeper and better understanding of the principles involved.
This edition of Rayner's Life presents the basic text as written by Rayner but with a large number of corrections and additions where needed, a complete modernization of the punctuation, the replacement of obsolete terms and of familiar words that were used in their archaic sense, as well as other revisions of dated references and incomplete bibliographic data. It relies on later, more accurate editions of Jefferson's writings where possible for the many quotations incorporated in the text. It is offered as a work in progress with the hope that historians and students of history will contribute additional corrections, revisions, or alternative points of view in the form of added notes and comments. The end result hoped for is a re-creation of Rayner's text that will retain the republican spirit and its focus on republican principles, while at the same time make that text conform to the findings of modern scholarly research and the highest standards of accuracy. Additional notes and comments will be inserted from time to time as a result of further study of Rayner's text. The designation in the form, ME 12:345, refers to the location (vol:pg) of a quoted passage from Jefferson in the Memorial Edition of the Writings (Lipscomb & Bergh, eds., Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904).
The original edition of Rayner's Life of Thomas Jefferson was published by Lilly, Wait, Colman, & Holden, of Boston, in 1834.
# Life of Thomas Jefferson, by B. L. Rayner, Revised and Edited byEyler Robert Coates, Sr.
