Stealing George Washington

In 1897**, George Washington’s diary and other irreplaceable artifacts from the American Revolution were stolen from the Library of Congress, setting off an inquisition by the Secret Service and a sensational trial that threatened to unravel America’s national library.** In the late nineteenth century, the Congressional Library in the Capitol is bursting at the seams. Its chief librarian, Ainsworth Spofford, presides over a chaotic collection of books and documents spilling into alcoves and piled on desks, precariously illuminated by gaslight. For years, Spofford has been campaigning for a grand new building to house the nation’s rapidly growing collection. Now, as he fights to make that vision a reality, he is distracted from a crime unfolding in his own private office. Two young clerks have been running a monthslong heist, quietly stockpiling and selling stolen pieces of American history. Then they come for the most treasured item of all: George Washington’s diary, handwritten during the creation of the Constitution. Its disappearance sets off a chase led by the Secret Service and exposes a shadowy world of collectors, dealers, and thieves trafficking in the nation’s most valuable historical documents. What follows is a headline-making trial that humiliates some of America’s most prominent collectors and threatens the reputation of a young institution still struggling to establish itself as the guardian of the nation’s history. In Stealing George Washington, bestselling author and award-winning historian Daniel Stone brings this meticulously researched, propulsive story to life, revealing the extraordinary lengths people will go to possess a piece of a nation’s past.