Well actually, I'm afraid the reliable scholars who have written about
Jefferson's books and book collecting seem to agree that there was one
sale, no gift, and no "behests."
 As Sec of State and Pres he doubtless influenced and encouraged the
acquisition of books for the congressional library before 1815, but his
sale of his library to Congress in 1815 (after the burning of
Washington, D.C. in the War of 1812) involved the 6487 volumes sold for
$23,950 as mentioned in my previous post based on Malone's six-volume
biography.
   A more recent article by a careful student of Jefferson's library and
former director of the International Center for Jefferson Studies at
Monticello states that: "Jefferson is usually said to have had three
libraries": one of about 400 volumes destroyed by fire in 1770; the
second "great" library sold to Congress in 1815, and a third library of
several thousand volumes collected between 1815 and his death in 1826.
See Douglas L. Wilson, "Sowerby Revisited: The Unfinished Catalogue of
Thomas Jefferson's Library," William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd. Ser., 41
(Oct., 1984): 617-618.

Jon Kukla

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