Despite his clear sympathy for the late 'sage', Dumas Malone did a better job on this book, when compared to his efforts on "Jefferson and the Rights of Man".
This book, ("The Sage of Monticello"), centered on the ex-president's life after retiring to his grand plantation. It is a well-written account, although that I disagreed with the author on certain issues.
Yes, I may seem stubborn, but I will always like to be conscientious: I refuse to agree that a man who was a slave-holder was at the same time, the champion who fought for the rights of men. It is simply contradictory!

What can be said about this monument to Jefferson scholarship? I am sure that somewhere in universities around the United States there are "scholar squirrels who want to put down this invaluable resource in Jefferson studies. It is always the way that mice attempt to gnaw at lions. This is not a perfect work (and my remarks refer to all of the books in the series as a whole), there are somethings, namely Sally Hemmings references which are wrong and will not sit well with American 21st century mores. There is the issue of slavery which was handled much differently 50 years ago than it is now.
Jefferson is not worthy of our interest because of Sally Hemmings and because he kept slaves. Jefferson is great because of the Declaration of Independence and his fight for the rights of man. While it may have been hypocritical to preach liberty and keep slaves, it is doubtful that slavery ever would have been abolished if Jefferson had never gained the prominence that he did. This book and the others that follow show why we should continue to honor the public man even though his private side may have been wanting.

Jefferson and His Time: The Sage of Monticello is the crowning jewel of this sixth out of six volume set. This Pulitzer Prize winning series about Thomas Jefferson took the author (Dumas Malone) a lifetime to write, as he started it in 1943 and finished it in 1981.

This volume takes us from the end of Jefferson's second term as President to his death. But these times are Jefferson's best in terms of his satisfaction with his immediate family, even though at times were a bit rocky, Jefferson longed of retirement from public life. Long ago friendship of John Adams was rekindled with frequent correspondence... James Madison not living too far away from Jefferson was a frequent correspondent.

Jefferson's talent wasn't wasted as he worked on the establishment and founding of the University of Virginia. He proved himself as one of the preeminent force for public education. But, Jefferson's personal debt played a role in Jefferson's energy and dreams.

We really get to see Jefferson as a man in this volume and his works for the public good emerge here. Also, we see Jefferson's health deminish and his battle for life play a part. This volume is masterfully engaging and well written. Impeccable scholarship and a life long dedication are very apparent.

If you like to read history and biographical history in particular and want to read about Thomas Jefferson, this series has to be on your short list.

I highly recommend reading this series. It has been an honor reading about one of America's most extraordinary men.

This book includes color photographs of the current gardens at Monticello and black & white reproductions of Thomas Jefferson's own sketched plans for the gardens. There is an annotated list of the flowers and "woody ornamentals," such as roses and shrubs, grown by Jefferson. There are many excerpts from his writing and letters which give the reader a greater sense of Jefferson's broad intellect and love of nature as it relates to his gardens. I was hoping to find a list of flowers native to Virginia cultivated by Jefferson but, while the origins of many of the flowers are indicated, there is no separate list of the native plants as I had hoped.

I found the book to be quite intersting and a valuable resource for the gardener. Thomas Jefferson is well known for his gardening efforts, both as ornamental and practical for food stuffs.

The book has excellent photographs of the gardens of Monticello as well as Jefferson's drawings of how he wanted to landscape the area of his "Little Mountain." There is great pride in the book to document over one hundred species of plants cultivated by Jefferson while living at Monticello.

Jefferson was a champion of cultivating indigenous plant life to Virginia and that of North America, but he had plants comming from thoughout the world also.

Cultivating a mountain top graden presented problems for Jefferson in both climate and the proper hydration of the plants themselves. Without all of the modern conviences that we have today, Jefferson managed to have some of the most beautiful gardens in Virginia.

This is a must book if you are looking for gardening proportion and scale. As Jefferson said, "There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me." Well said...

In the book you will find very good descriptions of the plants grown at Monticello, this is a must volume for reference.

Besides authoring the Declaration of Independence, serving as our third president, and founding a university, Thomas Jefferson said a lot of intelligent things, and 365 of the most eloquent and quotable are collected here. My only beef with this book is the organization of the quotes, which is for some reason "a saying per day" (e.g. May 6), when there is no hint that he made the statement on that day, or that there is any connection at all between the day and the quote. If it were a calendar pad with tear-off sheets, that would make more sense. In any event, the index enables you to find quotes by subject, and you may find yourself reading through the entire list, marking your favorites for later.

Nice little book displaying Jefferson's not-so kind views on contemporary Christianity and other religious mythologies. You aren't going to learn a bunch of stuff about Jefferson from this book, but its a nice source for sayings and quotations.

This isn't a book that will explain why aphids are eating your roses, or why the tomoatoes are yellow---but it will tell you why a gardener cares. It would make a lovely gift for a gardener at Christmas or Hanukkah--the time of the year when we long for a little bit of sun, or perhaps a weed to pull. Simon's prose perfectly captures the essence of _why_ we garden, and the added whimsy of the "correspondance" with Jefferson allows her to add fascinating information about gardening and how it has changed over the years. An excellent read on a rainy, non-gardening day

In this fast-paced age we live, it's even difficult for adults to remember that traveling didn't use to be so easy. JOURNEY TO MONTICELLO illustrates the hardships of traveling in colonial times in very dramatic and graphic detail by telling the tale of Amos Trumball on a journey to deliver an important letter to Thomas Jefferson. Amos travels from his home in Braintree, Massachusetts to Monticello, Virginia. Along the way he rides in a coach, ferry, on a horse, and travels by foot. The trip takes several weeks and Amos incurs several hardships. Great book for introducing children to colonial times and also for helping them realize how blessed we are nowadays.

One of the clichés about Monticello is that few houses do so good a job revealing the personality of its builder. But clichés get to be such generally because there's truth to them, and that's definitely the case here. If Thomas Jefferson was one of the most interesting figures in American history (and I think that's unquestionably true), then Monticello may well be one of America's most interesting houses. And for this colorful book produced by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, we are guided through the house and grounds by people who know their stuff.

Specifically, the chapters of this title are written by Monticello's director of restoration, the curator, the director of gardens and grounds, and other experts associated with the Foundation. Large, colorful photos are accompanied by informed commentary and all the requisite history, as well as documentation of the decades of restoration work it has taken to get the house and grounds to its current condition. A book doesn't make up for a visit in person -- if anything, I wished for more photos of the interior, especially of the book room and "cabinet." But for a general overview of the house, grounds, and collection, and an insight into the man himself, this book is hard to beat. I recommend it as a souvenir, as well as a nice companion to a Jefferson biography.

A who done it about when where and if?? This is a literary mystery, ya gotta love that, Everyone trying to prove or disprove what Thomas Jefferson Did or didn't do?? Written by a Jeffersonian scholar ,this is an entertaining and fun book, I was really surprised... So If your a history buff this will be great bed time reading. Like the CSI investigation of a great man of history.

This, like all of the other Mrs. Murphy mysteries, was very entertaining and was an exciting read. There are a few problems, however. The author expects us to know Thomas Jefferson's entire life history, all of his relatives, all of his slaves, and everything ever written about Monticello. Raise you hand if you know these things! There is a family chart at the front of the book, but, if you're like me, it hinders more than it helps. Also, as I said earlier, "Old Sins" is correct. Most of the book is about discovering who murdered a man 175 years ago. What are they going to do when they find out who did it? Prosecute the murderer?

I enjoy the Mrs Murphey series on the whole, although I've found lately, that I don't always read through all of the animal "dialogue" like I did with the first few books; which of course makes it much faster reading! I particularly enjoy the display of equestian knowledge, because I've taken dressage lessons in the past, and find it reinforces some of what I learned. I found the logic of the plot of this particular book just slightly flawed, although I'm not certain that everyone will discover that flaw or even that those who do will necessarily care. I also found the attempt to defend the reputation of Jefferson a little cloying at times. Jefferson needs no defense; for one thing, he's dead (and therefore cannot speak in his own defense), and for another he was a man of his times and rose head and shoulders above many of those of his times with respect to his moral character, productivity, contribution to mankind, intellectual achievements, etc. To try the past seems a wasted effort; better to make certain the present lives up to it's ideals. As usual the staple characters of Croiset are a never failing delight. I always enjoy spending time with them. They've become old friends, and I read these books as much to "visit" with them as to solve the mystery.

I lived in Charlottesville for 6 years before moving to NJ, and at that time, I was reading this book, and it brought back a lot of good memories. I highly recommend people to read it (although I read it before this whole new Jefferson/Sally DNA thing started, so now there might be a different perspective, but it's still good nonetheless.). Mrs.Murphy and Tucker are really cool, and their thoughts are a very nice addtion to the book.

The elements of a great mystery are here. A book that interweaves the issue of slavery, the questions around Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, and the imperatives of the Lewis and Clark expedition with a story about a serial killer sounds promising, but the book does not deliver...There's simply not enough suspense or mystery here, the writing is often annoying, and the characters aren't very interesting. Perhaps some will enjoy this as a light read. Not recommended.

Before reviewing this book, let me warn potential readers that this book contains much off-color language and disgusting details of extreme sexual misbehavior. This is not your normal Jane Langton novel where some sedate professor performs a fairly clean murder. Instead, there is a relatively uneducated serial killer of a most disgusting sort involved. To me, the gross aspects of the serial killer were not essential to the story, and simply lessened the appeal of the book.

Almost all of the characters in Murder at Monticello are obsessed by some aspect of Jefferson's life or of the Lewis and Clark expedition into the newly purchased Louisiana Territory. A July 4th celebration of the bicentennial year of Jefferson's becoming the third president draws these characters to Monticello in Charlottesville, Virginia. While some characters are looking forward to the big fireworks show, others are planning to make their own fireworks.

The familiar Homer and Mary Kelly come down from Cambridge, Massachusetts at the invitation of a friend who offers them a free place to stay. A former student, Fern Fisher, is working on a new biography of Jefferson to help improve his reputation despite having been a slave holder and having possibly had sexual relations with one of his slaves, who was the half-sister of his deceased wife. Augustus Upchurch, a local benefactor of Jefferson studies, has helped raise the money to fund the book, but also becomes interested in Ms. Fisher despite the wide difference in their ages. Ms. Fisher sees apparitions of Jefferson in and around Monticello. Tom Dean, a local man who is about to enter medical school, is fascinated by Lewis and Clark, and through this meets Ms. Fisher and extends his interests to include her. The local police chief owns the Oxford English Dictionary and spends his free time looking up what the words in the Declaration of Independence meant in Jefferson's time. The serial killer imagines himself being related to one of the men in the Lewis and Clark expedition, based on having been raised on the Missouri River in Bismarck, North Dakota. Homer Kelly starts reading up on Lewis and Clark. Each chapter begins with a quote from the expedition's journals.

Like all Homer and Mary Kelly stories, there's not much mystery here. There are simply tangled skeins of lives and story lines that overlap. The individual stories are more of an excuse to delve into a particular period of history than serious fiction. Being quite familiar with Jefferson and the Lewis and Clark expedition, the only new knowledge that the book imparted were more details than I wanted to know about the sexual habits of the men on the expedition.

The overall theme of Murder at Monticello is that obsessions are bad for us, because they blind us to more positive opportunities to connect with others and more meaningful activities.

Unless you feel a compulsive need to read all of these stories by Ms. Langton, I suggest you skip this one. Of her recent efforts, I thought that Dead as a Dodo was far superior to Murder at Monticello. The ideas developed in that book about Darwin are far more interesting than the slim intellectual foundation of Murder at Monticello.

I do like Ms. Langton's new habit of taking the Kellys to new locations outside of Massachusetts. I hope Ms. Langton continues this trend in her upcoming novels.

Search for the opportunities to expand goodness, and then act on them!

I am always impressed by the ability Jane Langton shows in each of her books to encompass varying subject matters in such details. This book uses the expedition of Lewis & Clark to intertwine various lives and loves. As usual with Homer Kelly books, the reader knows the culprit, or at least knows who did NOT do the crime(s). This book contains some rather brutal murders, although the subject is handled in the usual Langton finesse. Homer and Mary do not figure so very much in this episode, with much of the action centering on guest characters. It is, as always, well-written, and, also as always, the pencil drawings by the author add to the enjoyment of reading this book. All in all, this is a fine addition to the series and I am looking forward to reading the next.