 Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History was published in February 1974, and it was the main spring selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club. Brodie tried to ensure that none of the three foremost Jefferson scholars, Dumas Malone, Merrill Peterson, and Julian Boyd, would review the book. Brodie was interviewed on NBC's Today Show, and the book quickly "became a topic of comment in elite social-literary circles," as well as among political people. The biography was an immediate commercial success; it was on the New York Times bestseller list for thirteen weeks. Jefferson sold 80,000 copies in hardback, 270,000 copies in paperback, and netted Brodie $ 350,000 in royalties — adjusted for inflation, more than a million dollars in the early twenty-first century.
