George Washington's Beautiful Nelly: The Letters of Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis to Elizabeth Bordley Gibson, 1794-1851

An intimate portrait of the first ""first family"" from the vantage of Washington's adopted daughter Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis (1779-1852) was in many ways the quintessential southern lady, but as Martha Washington's granddaughter by her first marriage and George Washington's adopted daughter, she was also an American celebrity. Her lifelong correspondence with childhood friend Elizabeth Bordley Gibson records the experiences of the first family, the social and political gossip of the new republic's elite circle, and the difficulties of motherhood and marriage. Edited by Patricia Brady, the voluminous and unguarded letters also reveal the complex cast of family and friends associated with the Washington household, the details of plantation life, and the social limitations placed on even the most privileged eighteenth- and nineteenth-century women. This edition features an updated introduction.