The Diaries of John Quincy Adams 1779-1848By: John Quincy Adams For the 250th anniversary of John Quincy Adams's birth, a landmark new selected edition of an American masterpiece: the incomparable self portrait of a man and his times from the Revolution to the coming of the Civil War. The diary of John Quincy Adams is one of the most extraordinary works in American literature. Begun in 1779 at the age of twelve and kept more or less faithfully until his death almost 70 years later, and