Many visitors over the generations have recorded their impressions of Monticello and its creator. These writings, especialy those from Jefferson's lifetime, preserve important details about him and the house and grounds that might otherwise have been lost. In Visitors to Monticello, Merrill D. Peterson provides a collegtion of thirty-five of these writings dating from 1780 to 1984.

Merrill D. Peterson is Jefferson Foundation Professor of History, Emeritus, at the University of Virginia. His previous books are numerous and include The Jefferson Image in the American Mind; James Madison: A Biography in His Own Words; and Jefferson and Madison and the Making of Constitutions.