Few books have had so unexpected a suc-
cess as The Education of Henry Adams.
Printing the manuscript privately in 1907
in an edition of one hundred copies only
for distribution among his friends, the
author declined to allow the book to be
published during his lifetime. He be-
queathed the copyright, however, to the
Massachusetts Historical society, and in
1918, about six months after his death, the
first published edition appeared. Although
The Education had aroused a deep inter-
est among all those who had been able to
have access to one of the original copies,
few if any would have predicted for it a
great popular success. Yet it has already
sold more copies than many ‘best sellers,’
and has won an assured place not only
among the significant works in American
literature but among those which com-
mand a wide and steadily enlarging
public. Especially among the younger
generation, the influence of the book is
markedly increasing.