Tag Archives: american history

Is Fiction Useful? Note on Jefferson’s Letter to Robert Skipwith, Aug. 3rd 1771

Letter of Thomas Jefferson to Robert Skipwith, Aug. 3rd 1771 Jefferson honors a request to create a catalog of books for Skipwith’s library. We find him, strangely enough, defending the value of fiction: A little attention however to the nature of the human mind evinces that the entertainments of fiction are useful as well as