Book

Scandalmonger / William Safire.

Safire, William, 1929- (author).

Summary:

This volume unveils the story behind the nation's first great political scandals. James Thomson Callender, the "scandalmonger" of the title, is an ambitious gossip-peddling editor secretly hired by Thomas Jefferson as a political weapon. After carefully damaging Alexander Hamilton's reputation, thereby paving the way for Jefferson's success, Callender is shunned by the very politicians on whose behalf he was jailed for sedition. Broke and betrayed, Callender seeks revenge by exposing an illicit affair between Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemmings, an accusation that ultimately cost Callender his career and would not be authenticated for two centuries. By using actual letters, records, and notes to re-create dialog and events, this work embodies historical fiction at its best, politics at its most intriguing, and our Founding Fathers at their most notorious. For those who think that Washington sex scandals and lurid journalism are recent developments, this novel will be a revelation, for it shows how media intrusiveness into private lives-and politicians' cool manipulation of the press-are practices as old as the Constitution.

Record details

ISBN: 0684867192
ISBN: 9780684867199
ISBN: 9780743212052
ISBN: 0743212053
ISBN: 0156013231
ISBN: 9780156013239
Physical Description: 496 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Publisher: New York : Simon & Schuster, ©2000.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references (pages 489-494).
Formatted Contents Note:	Part I Hamilton scandal -- Part II Sedition scandal -- Part III Jefferfon scandals -- Part IV Libel scandal -- Epilogue: What happened later.