Retro Book Education by Uncles by Abigail Adams Homans 1966

Reference id: exyp7l7Po18 34

Vintage book "Education by Uncles" by Abigail Adams Homans copyright 1966.

Measures 8.5 inches tall, 5.75 inches wide. 149 pages.

Condition: dust jacket is torn but still in tact, pages are nice and clean.

This book is full of the spirit of its author, a woman of wit, wisdom and an unclouded vision of the truth. It also brings to life as no other writing has done the genius, the eccentricity and the character of two of Americas most distinguished writers - Mrs. Homans uncles, Henry and Brooks Adams.

Mrs. Robert Homans carries lightly and vigorously a tradition which could easily subdue a less spirited person. She grew up in the Victorian monstrosity built by her father, not far from the Old House in Quincy in which her great-great-grandfather John Adams had lived, as well as his son, the sixth President, John Quincy Adams; Mrs. Homans grandfather, Charles Francis Adams, Lincolns Minister to England; her father, John Quincy Adams and his famous brothers, Henry and Brooks.

Young Abigail Adams paid her first visit to her Uncle Henry in Washington when she was fourteen years old and remained close to him until his death in 1918. She saw with the unforgetting eyes of youth the brilliant coterie who formed his court in the famous house on Lafayette Square - Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, John Hay, Senator Cameron of Pennsylvania and many other distinguished men.

One autumn day in 18972, her Uncle Brooks, announcing that Quincy was no place for a girl to grow up in, took young Abigail to Europe. While they were in Paris, the Spanish-American War broke out, and Mr. Adams, who always maintained that a mans highest destiny was to be a warrior and a womans to be convent-bred, imagined the fulfillment of both of his ideals to be immediately available. He lift his niece at the convent of the Sacred Hart and himself returned posthaste to America to be as close to the scene of military activity as should prove possible.

After her short season at the convent, Abigail paid a long summer visit to her Uncle Henry in England where, with John Hay, the U.S. Ambassador, and Senator Cameron, he had taken a large house in Kent as a playground for the Embassy. Another guest was the famous American beauty May Leiter, married now to George Nathaniel Curzon, who in a few months was to become Viceroy of India.

After this exciting year, Abigail Adams returned to the more humdrum occupation of "coming out" in the Boston of the nineties; to further visits with her famous uncle in Washington, and renewed association with the Old House.

Beginning in the early years of her life, and continuing to the present day, Mrs. Homans has spent her summers at the curious, rambling old summer hotel at Scituate known as the Glades. She describes with keen appreciation and frankness the evolution of The Glades Club and the unique life that her family and friends have led there.

Education by Uncles will appeal to all who have an interest in history, a nostalgia for thequite days before the first World War, or who simply enjoy the spicy wisdom of an acute mind.