The staff of the John Dickinson Writings Project and the University of Delaware Press/University of Virginia Press are very pleased to announce the publication of Volume One of The Complete Writings and Selected Correspondence of John Dickinson, ed. Jane E. Calvert.

In 1801, John Dickinson published a two-volume edition containing 14 of his most famous publications from 1764 to 1797. For the next two centuries, editors tried and failed to produce a second edition of his works. With 69 documents covering the years 1751 to 1758, this inaugural volume was ten year in the making. It includes the first unabridged and thoroughly annotated version of his letters to his parents from his legal training at London’s Middle Temple from 1753 to 1757, as well as legal notes from his first years of practice in Pennsylvania. Because they are illegible as archival documents, none of these notes have been studied before. They demonstrate Dickinson’s heretofore unknown role as lead defense attorney for William Smith during his 1758 libel trial by the Pennsylvania Assembly, and his defense in the Admiralty Court of American merchants in the flag-of-truce trade during the Seven Years’ War. These documents reveal a wealth of information about Dickinson as an idealistic young man who set the tone for the next fifty years of his legal and political career when he said, “there cannot be upon Earth, a nobler Employment than the Defence of Innocence, the Support of Justice, & the Preservation of Peace and Harmony amongst Men.” He then became the only leading founder to free all his slaves during his lifetime, write abolition legislation, provide reparations, and work to protect the rights of other vulnerable populations, including women, Indians, the poor, and criminals.