Thomas
Jefferson’s
Library

The president’s personal collection is the foundation of the modern Library of Congress.

By Neely Tucker
▪ Three of the original volumes from Thomas Jefferson’s personal library. Rare Book and Special Collections Division; photo by Shawn Miller
In September 1814, Thomas Jefferson wrote one of the more important letters in American history to Samuel H. Smith, a longtime friend and prominent academic and newspaper publisher. Jefferson, furious that British troops had burned the U.S. Capitol a few weeks earlier, asked Smith to act as an intermediary and offer his immense book collection to Congress to replace the in-house library that had been torched.

Smith did so, and Jefferson sold Congress 4,931 titles (encompassing 6,487 volumes) for $23,950 the next year, forming the DNA of today’s Library of Congress, now the largest library in the world. But even in that 1814 offer, Jefferson indicated he wasn’t going to include everything he had. That would come later, after his death, “so that the whole library, as it stands in the catalogue at this moment should be theirs, without any garbling.”

A classical oil painting portrait of Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, depicted with wavy white hair and a fur-lined coat, set against a warm, dark background.
▪ Rembrandt Peale painted this portrait of President Thomas Jefferson in 1805. Reproduction, Prints and Photographs Division
Reuniting all those volumes would have been daunting enough, but after an 1851 Christmas Eve fire in the Congressional reading room in the U.S. Capitol destroyed more than 3,000 of Jefferson’s volumes, it seemed impossible.

For the better part of the intervening two centuries, reconstructing Jefferson’s “catalogue at this moment” has been a quest, a fascination and an obsession for scholars and historians.

Today, anchored by a million-dollar grant from Jerry and Gene Jones in 1999, decades of international work by some of the Library’s most accomplished experts has the fire-damaged collection almost entirely replicated with exact copies of the missing books that Jefferson had owned — the same publisher, same edition, same binding (if any) — and reunited in a single exhibit since 2008. A few items trickle in each year, but 200 or so minor volumes and pamphlets may be lost to time, such as an Italian pamphlet on pomegranate growing that the ever-curious Jefferson once tucked away.

“The project is not so much about finding an individual book,” said Mark Dimunation, the former chief of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division who spearheaded the effort. “It’s the collection itself, because it really is the universe of his creative knowledge. All of the books are atoms in that larger universal structure. And they all had weight with him.”

The sweeping effort meant Dimunation’s team first searched the Library’s own stacks of tens of millions of volumes. They then searched the collections of other libraries and sought out rare book dealers and antiquarians from multiple countries to help replicate the world view that led the author of the Declaration of Independence to pen such a world-changing set of ideas.

It hasn’t been easy for many reasons, one of the most prominent being that Jefferson was fluent in several languages and he let his curiosity go where it might. He wrote to Smith, describing the books that would become the foundation of the Library.

“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 hands, and putting by every thing which related to America, and indeed whatever was rare & valuable in every science,” he wrote. “besides (sic) this, I had standing orders, during the whole time I was in Europe, in it’s (sic) principal book-marts, particularly Amsterdam, Frankfort, Madrid and London, for such works relating to America as could be found in Paris.”

So while Jefferson’s was a uniquely American collection, it was composed mostly of European parts, brought together from many places at many different times, purchased by many different people.

Jefferson had many important titles, of course, critical to his thinking. He had more than 40 volumes by Marcus Tullius Cicero, his favorite classical philosopher; he had his annotated copies of The Federalist; he had George Sale’s important translation of the Koran; and Blackstone’s “Commentaries on the Laws of England.”

A historical handwritten document listing numbers and signatures, including the names of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. A secondary document overlays it, containing a table with columns of numerical data and missing book records.
▪ Jefferson made these annotations in his own copy of “The Federalist” (left). At right, he created this inventory of the books in his personal library. Rare Book and Special Collections Division; Manuscript Division
A collection of antique books, including a 17th-century Latin text with an elaborate title page featuring a decorative emblem. Open pages reveal historical maps, printed text, and intricate engravings.
▪ A selection of books from Thomas Jefferson’s library. Rare Book and Special Collections Division; photo by Shawn Miller
A classic oil painting of Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, depicted wearing a fur-lined coat. The portrait, set against a dark background, captures Jefferson’s composed expression and flowing white hair.
▪ Rembrandt Peale painted this portrait of President Thomas Jefferson in 1805. Reproduction, Prints and Photographs Division
A historical handwritten document listing books from Thomas Jefferson’s personal library, sold to the Library of Congress in 1815. The page contains columns of numbers and text, showing book titles and classification details.
▪ Thomas Jefferson created this inventory of the books in his personal library in 1815. Manuscript Division
A historic document from the Thirteenth Congress of the United States, dated 1814, authorizing the purchase of Thomas Jefferson’s personal library for the Library of Congress. The text is printed with handwritten signatures at the bottom.
▪ This act of Congress, signed by President James Madison in 1815, authorized the purchase of Jefferson’s library for use as a resource by Congress. National Archive and Records Administration
A close-up of the spines of two leather-bound volumes of The Federalist Papers, featuring gold lettering and decorative detailing. The red and green spine labels read "The Federalist I" and "The Federalist II."
▪ Thomas Jefferson’s copy of “The Federalist.” Rare Book and Special Collections Division; photo by Shawn Miller
The title page of The Federalist Papers, an 18th-century collection of essays advocating for the U.S. Constitution. The page features aged paper, elegant typography, and a handwritten inscription from Elizabeth Hamilton.
▪ Alexander Hamilton’s wife, Elizabeth, made sure Thomas Jefferson got this copy of “The Federalist.” Her name is inscribed at the top of the page. Rare Book and Special Collections Division; photo by Shawn Miller
A historical document with faded ink, featuring a handwritten note identifying the authors of The Federalist Papers, including John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton. The document also contains an attestation of Thomas Jefferson’s handwriting.
▪ Alexander Hamilton, John Jay or James Madison? Thomas Jefferson wrote his guess of the author of each numbered essay in “The Federalist” on this page of his copy. Rare Book and Special Collections Division; photo by Shawn Miller
A dimly lit library table with an open book displaying a detailed map, surrounded by several antique leather-bound books. A brass lamp with a decorative base casts a warm glow over the historical collection.
▪ Thomas Jefferson’s copy of “The Journal of Major George Washington,” with its foldout map of an area stretching from Virginia to Lake Michigan. Rare Book and Special Collections Division; photo by Shawn Miller
A close-up of three antique books with gold-lettered spines, including Political Pamphlets, Hexapla Originis II, and Filmer Observations on Government, each showing worn leather bindings.
▪ Three original volumes from Thomas Jefferson’s library. Rare Book and Special Collections Division; photo by Shawn Miller
A weathered page from an 18th-century book with a printed preface discussing government representation. Handwritten notes in faded ink appear in the margins, engaging with the text's political arguments.
▪ Benjamin Franklin wrote these comments into the margins of Jefferson’s copy of “Reflections Moral and Political on Great Britain and Her Colonies.” Rare Book and Special Collections Division; photo by Shawn Miller
The spine of an antique leather-bound book titled Laws of Virginia, marked as "Revisal of 1768." The gold lettering and ornate detailing contrast with the aged, darkened leather cover.
▪ Thomas Jefferson’s copy of “Laws of Virginia.” Rare Book and Special Collections Division; photo by Shawn Miller
But, perhaps curiously for a man of such refined literary tastes, he most often preferred workaday reading copies of later editions of such works, both to save costs (he was always in debt) and to have access to the latest information. Since these later editions were not remarkable in publishing terms, few antiquarians saw the need to hold onto them, and many have been lost to time.

“One aspect of Jefferson’s collecting was to pick up things that weren’t common — things mistakenly described as ‘pamphlets’ that were really just tearaway chapters from books,” Dimunation says. “There’s just a whole variety of scarce materials that can’t be located in matching copies today. And there are a few titles that we can find no bibliographic evidence of whatsoever.”

But a few times a year, a matching book is discovered. In 2024, donor Marianne Spain came across the sixth edition of “Elémens de l’histoire de France, depuis Clovis jusqu’à Louis XV” by abbé Claude François Xavier Millot. It’s a three-volume set, published in Paris in 1787. She recognized it as a Jefferson match and donated it to the Library. It’s now in the Jefferson Library exhibit — just another small moment of serendipity and philanthropy bringing Jefferson’s completed library one step closer to reality.

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