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For the first time, a comprehensive one-volume collection of the remarkable letters of the politically astute First Lady who has been called "an American Tocqueville." From virtually the moment she married the ambitious young lawyer John Adams in 1764, Abigail Smith Adams (1744-1818) was on her own, raising and educating the couple's children, managing their farm and investments, and caring for an extended web of family and friends. Her frank and keenly observant letters to John and others in the 1760s and 1770s offer an unrivalled portrait of the American Revolution at the home front, revealing the emergence of one of the most talented and insightful correspondents of her age. In 1784, Adams and daughter Abigail joined John and their son John Quincy in Europe, opening a grand new field for her talents as social commentator and political advisor.