Two years ago Leonard Wibberley, author of almost a dozen books on the Ariel list, wrote to his publisher about his plans for this book: "I have been doing a little preliminary reading and have come to the conclusion that it would be a mistake to cover the life of Jefferson in one volume. All that would be accomplished would be to give a recital of his exploits, which would become a boring litany. What I would like to do is discover how he got to be Jefferson, how his mind started to work, what the country was like at the time, and who the greatest figures were. In short, I would like to have the scope in writing the Jefferson biography that I had in writing the Treegate books [see back of this jacket], where the stage would be not only the thirteen colonies but also France and England and that huge wilderness beyond the Ohio that was as big as all Europe."

Young Man from the Piedmont opens in 1743, when Thomas Jefferson was born near the banks of the Rivanna River in the British colony of Virginia. The book closes in 1776 when Mr. Jefferson dipped his pen into his inkwell and began to write: "When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another..."

Young Man from the Piedmont, the first of a projected three volumes will serve not only as a biography of Jefferson but will also present the social, intellectual and political world into which Jefferson was born, and which he did so much to alter. Indispensable reading for young Americans. Indexed, and with a bibliographical note.

From the dust jacket