George Washington’s Beautiful Nelly
The Letters of Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis to
Elizabeth Bordley Gibson, 1794–1851
Edited by Patricia Brady
“Revealing much about the daily concerns of a Southern woman over a lifetime,
these letters remind us that, even as the nation was coming apart, the private worlds
of women (and men) were held together by family, faith, and friendships.”
—Library Journal
“In Nelly’s letters can be traced the passage of a Virginia belle of unique privilege into
a mature woman who had a share of unhappiness in the premature death of her children and other family members. The letters are expressive; Nelly is forthright in her
attitudes about the evils of slavery, the need for culture, the frustrations of societal
expectations for women.”—Publishers Weekly
Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis (1779–1852) was in many ways the quintessential
southern lady, but as Martha Washington’s granddaughter by her first marriage and
George Washington’s adopted daughter, she was also an American celebrity. Her
lifelong correspondence with childhood friend Elizabeth Bordley Gibson records the
experiences of the first family, the social and political gossip of the new republic’s
elite circle, and the difficulties of motherhood and marriage. Edited by Patricia
Brady, the voluminous and unguarded letters also reveal the complex cast of family
and friends associated with the Washington household, the details of plantation
life, and the social limitations placed on even the most privileged eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century women. This edition features an updated introduction.
Patricia Brady is author of Martha
Washington: An American Life and
editor of Nelly Custis Lewis’s Housekeeping Book and Encyclopaedia of New
Orleans Artists, 1718–1918. Brady
served for twenty years as director
of publications at the Historic New
Orleans Collection. She lives in New
Orleans.
December 2006, 320 pages, 9 illus.
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