Books: Founding Father in Love

THOMAS JEFFERSON: AN INTIMATE HISTORY

by FAWN M. BRODIE 591 pages. W.W. Norton. $12.50.

Thomas Jefferson is generally perceived as the philosopher-statesman nonpareil of the infant nation. His accomplishments affect and touch us still. He drafted the Declaration of Independence and championed the Louisiana Purchase. He founded the University of Virginia and built Monticello. Yet Jefferson the man remains an extraordinarily elusive and ambivalent figure. Historian Dumas Malone, one of the most acute Jeffersonists, ruefully wrote: "I flattered myself that some time I would fully comprehend and encompass him. I do not claim that I have yet done so, and I...

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