Kevin j hayes biography of rory

Biography views Jefferson through written word

ALUMNI | Many books have been written about the events in the life of Thomas Jefferson, as the author of the Declaration of Independence and a Founding Father and president of the United States, but Kevin J.

Hayes, AS ’91PhD, has taken a different approach in his book, The Road to Monticello, The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson, published by the Oxford University Press.

Hayes, a professor of English at the University of Central Oklahoma, writes that his purpose is to “study what Thomas Jefferson read and what he wrote to show how the written word shaped his life.” He views Jefferson through his literary and intellectual interests, which in turn had a profound effect on his thinking and writing.

According to Hayes, “though there have been dozens of Jefferson biographies, remarkably, there has never been a literary biography until now.”

The late J.A. Leo Lemay, Henry Francis du Pont Winte