"Burn After Reading": Letters between Alexander Graydon and John Lardner “my oldest and best friend” 1778-1818

Between 1778 and 1818, two American friends in Pennsylvania exchanged letters, sometimes monthly, sometimes separated by a year. Over 120 of their letters have lain for the last 200 years in the archives of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and have now been transcribed and annotated.These were not famous men, though one of them should perhaps be better known than he is. He wrote a much-neglected book only recently appreciated for its unique autobiographical insights into growing up in pre-Revolutionary Philadelphia and then fighting as an infantryman in the War of Independence.The correspondents are Alexander Graydon, author of Memoirs of a Life Chiefly Passed in Pennsylvania Within the Last Sixty Years, and his old schoolfriend, John Lardner, who also served in the Revolutionary Army. Alexander Graydon II was a second generation member of an Irish family which emigrated to America in 1736. His father was a key figure in 18th century Philadelphia, a friend of Benjamin Franklin and other cultural figures in the city. Alexander II fought in the Revolutionary War, was captured by the British, and released after his mother enlisted the help of General Washington.The Lardners were members of the London middle class whose fortune was made by their alliance with the Penn family, founders of Pennsylvania, through the marriage of Hannah Lardner and Richard Penn, the youngest of William Penn's three sons. John Lardner was at school in Philadelphia with Alexander Graydon and later crossed the Delaware with General Washington and fought at Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, and Germantown. "This superbly edited collection flings open a window on a pivotal era in the history of the early republic. Through the appraising eyes and often eloquent words of two sensitive Pennsylvanians, we become eyewitnesses to the struggles of the fragile new United States, the slow demise of the Federalist Party and the rise of the Jeffersonian Democrats. In "Burn after Reading", we listen in upon the intimate dialogue of patriotic friends who wanted the best for the new nation they helped to bring into being but who worry increasingly that it may not fulfil their youthful hopes."Fergus M. Bordewich, author of "The First Congress: How James Madisn, George Washington and a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government" Read more