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 Life of Genl. Greene (Sketches of the Life and Correspondence of Nathanael Greene)
Thomas Jefferson's attested relationship to Life of Genl. Greene (Sketches of the Life and Correspondence of Nathanael Greene).
Thomas Jefferson is attested as having read this work by William Johnson.
Evidence ledger
- First-person reading testimony (Explicit first-person completed reading: 'I have deferred my thanks for the copy of your Life of Genl. Greene, until I could have time to read it. This I have done, and with the greatest satisfaction.' Title and author (the addressee, William Johnson) in-passage; proposed as a new Work. NOTE: this retroactively resolves the unresolved accept at batch-08 idx 1597 ('on reading the work...') - same book, there untitled.). Self-report reliability discount 0.85: The deferred-thanks pattern strengthens ('I have deferred my thanks for the copy of your Life of Genl. Greene, until I could have time to read it. This I have done, and with the greatest satisfaction') - he explicitly waited to acknowledge until the reading was real, the mirror-image of the pre-reading thanks he sent Botta; author-addressee flattery discount is mild for the same reason.