Spark’s Life of Washington[1]. Abridged by the author

[Author Unknown]

[Published in The Pioneer. A Literary and Critical Magazine; Jan 1843 (1:1)]

[Edited and Annotated by Laura Penalver for the University of Arizona Antebellum Magazine Edition Project, May 3, 2015.]

[Editor's Note]

            Of the merits of the original of this work we need say nothing. Is has already become established as the only biography of Washington. Of the abridgment it is enough to state that it is done by Mr. Sparks himself, to prove that it is accurate and comprehensive[2]. This, as well as the other publications of the same house[3], which we have seen, is well and handsomely printed, and in every way creditable to their taste and enterprise.

 

Editor’s Note

At least 3 years after this review was written, strong criticism of the abridged version of this work was being published. In the journal The Literary World, a strongly opinionated article titled “Mr. Jared Sparks’s liberties with George Washington”[4] questions Sparks’ talents as a writer, stating that “A man of true imagination would never make the error of misinterpreting George Washington”. By altering and withholding information, Jared Sparks angered the entire literate community, who saw it more as a betrayal of the heroic figure that George Washington was seen as. Being the first president of the United States of America, Washington stood as a figure of patriotism for the not so old nation. The fact that his life was distorted to seem less than what readers thought it amounted to, caused outrage possibly more due to what he stood for in the eyes of the nation, than an issue of honesty and literary integrity.