The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him

Paul Leicester Ford, an American novelist and biographer, was born in Brooklyn as the son of Gordon Lester Ford and Emily Fowler Ford. Ford was Noah Webster's great-grandson and the brother of historian Worthington C. Ford. He wrote about the lives of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and others, edited Thomas Jefferson's works, and authored several novels that were quite successful, including The Honorable Peter Stirling, Story of an Untold Love, Janice Meredith, Wanted a Matchmaker, and Wanted a Chaperon. Ford's edition of The Writings of Thomas Jefferson is still recognized as a monument of American historical research, having established the bar for documentary editing for half a century until the publication of the first volume of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Julian P. Boyd. Ford's edition is still noteworthy for its accurate transcription from original manuscripts and meticulous annotation of the papers chosen for publishing. The Ford edition came in two versions: a 10-volume edition published between 1892 and 1896, and a 14-volume limited-numbered edition printed in 1904, known as the "Federal" edition.