Paul Leicester Ford

Paul Lester Ford (March 23, 1865 - May 8, 1902) was an American novelist and biographer, born in Brooklyn, the son of Gordon Lester Ford and Emily Fowler Ford (Noah Webster’s granddaughter and long-time friend Emily Dickinson). He was the great-grandson of (through his mother's family) Noah Webster and brother of the famous historian Worthington C. Ford. He wrote the lives of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and others, edited the works of Thomas Jefferson and wrote a number of novels that were significant successes, including The Honorable Peter Sterling (1894), The Story of Untold Love, Janice Meredith, Matchmaker Wanted and Wanted accompanying. Ford's Thomas Jefferson's Writings is still considered one of the monuments of American historical science, setting the standard for documentary editing for half a century, until the first volume of Thomas Jefferson's Documents, edited by Julian P. Boyd, appears. Ford's publication remains valuable for the accuracy of the original manuscripts and the thorough annotation of the documents selected for publication. Ford, however, was at best tough on Jefferson, unlike Boyd, whose critics sometimes criticized him as a non-critical apologist for Jefferson. Ford appeared in two versions: a ten-volume edition, published between 1892 and 1896, and a four-volume limited edition (known as the “Federal” edition), published in 1904; apart from differences in volumes, the content of these issues is identical. Readers, however, should take note of which edition is used in this scientific work. Ford was killed at his home in Manhattan by his brother Malcolm Webster Ford, once the most famous amateur athlete in the United States, who then committed suicide. He is buried in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York.