“I cannot live without books.” -Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson loved his library. He estimated his collection at “between nine and ten thousand volumes.”
After the British burned buildings in Washington in the War of 1812, Jefferson wrote to Samuel Smith offering Congress the opportunity to purchase Jefferson’s vast personal library, on this day in 1814.
Jefferson’s library was an accomplishment that should not be overlooked. Only a dedicated bibliophile could have acquired so much. Jefferson described his library as “nearly the whole are well bound, abundance of them elegantly, and of the choicest editions existing.” He explains his work accumulating his collection as-
“Fifty years making it, and have spared no pains, opportunity or expense, to make it what it is. While residing in Paris, I devoted every afternoon I was disengaged, for a summer or two, in examining all the principal bookstores, turning over every book with my own hand, and putting by everything which related to America, and indeed whatever was rare and valuable in every science.”
Jefferson does not list a price and simply asks “to make for me the tender of it to the library committee of Congress.” He offers the library to be picked up immediately, if that is the desire of the library committee, and estimates that “eighteen or twenty wagons would place it in Washington in a single trip of a fortnight.”
The library was purchased in 1815 for around $23,000, which calculates into over $400,000 today. That would put the average price per book in the ballpark of $40 each in today’s money. Based on Jefferson’s descriptions of his library, his strict guidelines for finding the best books, and the sheer unavailability of finding other copies of editions in America which were printed in Europe, then I am not so sure Jefferson got a good deal from the government.
Riddled with debt, Jefferson felt the need to sell his books. It must have been tough for him, but selling to the Library of Congress, to replace what was lost in a war, and possibly at an under-valued price, is a selfless and noble act.
