Positive reconstruction · reader-scoped, not an inferred-absence lacuna
This reconstruction covers the readable fraction of Thomas Jefferson's formation -- attested reading and writing only, not the whole of a life.
Thomas Jefferson and Philippic against Mr. Adams, Gerry, Smith, and Jefferson (Pickering's Review)
Thomas Jefferson's attested relationship to Philippic against Mr. Adams, Gerry, Smith, and Jefferson (Pickering's Review).
Thomas Jefferson is attested as having read this work by Timothy Pickering.
Evidence ledger
- First-person reading testimony (Explicit first-person reading of an identified polemic: 'I have to thank you for Mr. Pickering's elaborate philippic against Mr. Adams, Gerry, Smith, and myself; and I have delayed the acknowledgment until I could read it.' Author and subject in-passage; proposed as a new Work.). Self-report reliability discount 0.9: The deferred-acknowledgment pattern again ('I have delayed the acknowledgment until I could read it and make some observations on it') - reading-before-thanking; adversarial subject (an attack on himself) motivates careful, complete reading; no flattery possible.