Book excerpt: "The Retirement Series documents Jefferson's written legacy between his return to private life on 4 March 1809 and his death on 4 July 1826. During this period Jefferson founded the University of Virginia and sold his extraordinary library to the nation, but his greatest legacy from these years is the astonishing depth and breadth of his correspondence with statesmen, inventors, scientists, philosophers, and ordinary citizens on topics spanning virtually every field of human endeavor."--