First published anonymously, March 1880, and soon in various unauthorized editions. It wasn't until the 1925 edition that Adams was listed as author. Henry Adams remarked (ironically as usual), "The wholesale piracy of Democracy was the single real triumph of my life."--it was very popular, as readers tried to guess who the author was and who the characters really were. Chapters XII and XIII were originally misnumbered.
Chapter I
FOR reasons which many persons thought ridiculous, Mrs. Lightfoot Lee decided to pass the winter in Washington. She was in excellent health, but she said that the climate would do her good. In New York she had troops of friends, but she suddenly became eager to see again the very small number of those who