WARREN BURGER'S MARKS IN DEWEY ON JEFFERSON

The first image below is a scan of a page from Warren Burger's copy of The Living Thoughts of Thomas Jefferson (1940), a volume that was edited by the American philosopher John Dewey. There are three pages with extreme and apparently non-referential marks. The first page is 90-91; the other example, at page 98, is similar. The second image below is a close-up of the middle of page 90. Perhaps Burger was sharpening his pencil on this page. Perhaps he - or someone else - was simply doodling.







The irony involved in the moderate Republican Chief Justice owning a defaced copy of a collection of Thomas Jefferson's works is too strong to leave unmentioned.

Unlike the other books in the collection (see my post on Burger and the bomb, below, for example), this book does not contain any extensive individual comments on particular passages. Aside from the two pages above where the marking is extreme, there are a few isolated lines in the margins throughout the volume

The only passage where Burger seems to have taken particular exception in Jefferson is on page 21, where he corrects Jefferson's sexist language. This script is almost certainly his - compare it to the writing on William and Mary's online exhibit page, for example.



The inscription on the inside front cover is in pencil, in what appears to be the same script as the careful, printed margin notes, also in pencil, found in the rest of the books in the collection. The final images below are a scan of the inside front cover and a close-up of the inscription itself. At least one other book in the collection has the same printed inscription. Most of them also have his book plates.