This list of suggested readings is not comprehensive, but it provides a good overview of the sources available on Martin Van Buren and his life. Sources that have utilized our project are in bold.

Primary Sources.

• Bancroft, George. Martin Van Buren to the End of His Public Career (1889).
• Butler, William A. Martin Van Buren: Lawyer, Statesman and Man (1862).
• Cooney, John Ward. “My Recollections of Ex-President Martin Van Buren and His Friends.” Annual Publication of the Historical Society of Southern California 9 (1912-1913): 28-33.
• Crockett, David [Augustin Smith Clayton]. The Life of Martin Van Buren: Heir-Apparent to the “Government,” and the Appointed Successor of General Andrew Jackson (1835).
• Dawson, Moses. Sketches of the Life of Martin Van Buren (1840).
• Emmons, William. Biography of Martin Van Buren, Vice President of the United States (1835).
• Ford, Worthington C., ed. “Van Buren-Bancroft Correspondence, 1830-1845.” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 42 (June 1909): 381-442.
• Friedenberg, Albert M. “The Correspondence of Jews with Martin Van Buren.” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society 22 (1914): 71-100.
• Grund, Franz J. Martin Van Buren als Staatsmann und künftiger präsident der Vereinigten Staaten von Nord-Amerika (1835).
• Holland, William M. The Life and Political Opinions of Martin Van Buren (1835).
• Kohan, Carol E. “Martin Van Buren’s Journey Home in 1839: An Account by His Son.” New York History 68 (January 1987): 93-99.
• McPherson, Elizabeth Gregory, ed. “Unpublished Letters from North Carolinians to Van Buren.” North Carolina Historical Review 15 (January 1938): 53-81.
• ________. “Unpublished Letters from North Carolinians to Van Buren.” North Carolina Historical Review 15 (April 1938): 131-155.
• Nelson, Ross. Letters to Martin Van Buren: An Edition of John Van Buren’s “Travel Journal for a Trip to Europe, 1838-1839” (2022).
• Sketches of the Life and Public Services of Martin Van Buren: Comprehending the Principal Events in the History of His Illustrious Career (1836).
• Van Buren, Martin. The Autobiography of Martin Van Buren. In Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1918. Vol. 2., ed. John C. Fitzpatrick (1920).
• ________. Inquiry into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States, ed. Abraham Van Buren and Smith Thompson Van Buren (1867).
• ________. Papers. Library of Congress. Washington, D.C.
• ________. The Papers of Martin Van Buren (microfilm edition). Chadwyck-Healey, Inc. (1987).
• Williams, William Henry, ed. “Ten Letters from William Harris Crawford to Martin Van Buren.” Georgia Historical Quarterly 49 (March 1965): 65-81.

Secondary Sources.

• Alexander, Holmes. The American Talleyrand: The Career and Contemporaries of Martin Van Buren, Eighth President (1935).
• Atkins, Jonathan M. “Van Buren and the Economic Collapse of the Late 1830s.” In A Companion to the Antebellum Presidents, 1837-1861, ed. Joel H. Silbey (2014).
• Beard, William E. “The Autobiography of Martin Van Buren.” Tennessee Historical Magazine 6 (October 1920): 145-165.
• Brooke, John L. Columbia Rising: Civil Life on the Upper Hudson from the Revolution to the Age of Jackson (2010).
• Brown, Richard H. “‘Southern Planters and Plain Republicans of the North’: Martin Van Buren’s Formula for National Politics.” Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1955.
• ________. “The Still Muffled Oars of Martin Van Buren.” Reviews in American History 12 (December 1984): 490-494. [joint review of Niven, Martin Van Buren, and Wilson, Presidency of Martin Van Buren]
• Butler, William A. Martin Van Buren: Lawyer, Statesman, and Man (1862).
• Cheathem, Mark R. "'It has caused me considerable embarrassment and not a little pain': The Ruptured Relationship of Martin Van Buren and James K. Polk." In James K. Polk and His Time: Essays at the Conclusion of the Polk Project, ed. Michael D. Cohen (2022).
• ________. Who Is James K. Polk? The Presidential Election of 1844 (2023).
• Cole, Donald B. Martin Van Buren and the American Political System (1984).
• Cone, Leon W., Jr. “Martin Van Buren: The Architect of the Democratic Party, 1837-1840.” Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1951.
• Costello, Matthew. "The Enslaved Households of President Martin Van Buren." White House Historical Association (2019).
• Curtis, James C. The Fox at Bay: Martin Van Buren and the Presidency, 1837-1841 (1970).
• ________. “In the Shadow of Old Hickory: The Political Travail of Martin Van Buren.” Journal of the Early Republic 1 (Fall 1981): 249-267.
• Duncan, Jason. "'Plain Catholics of the North': Martin Van Buren and the Politics of Religion, 1807–1836," U.S. Catholic Historian 38 (Winter 2020): 25-48. 
• Ellis, Richard J. Old Tip vs. the Sly Fox: The 1840 Election and the Making of a Partisan Nation (2020).
• Gatell, Frank Otto. “Sober Second Thoughts on Van Buren, the Albany Regency, and the Wall Street Conspiracy.” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 53 (June 1966): 19-40.
• Harrison, Joseph H., Jr. “Martin Van Buren and His Southern Supporters.” Journal of Southern History 22 (November 1956): 438-458.
• Hummel, Jeffrey Rogers. “Martin Van Buren: The Greatest American President.” The Independent Review 4 (Fall 1999): 255-281.
• Huston, Reeve. Land and Freedom: Rural Society, Popular Protest, and Party Politics in Antebellum New York (2000).
• ________. “The ‘Little Magician’ After the Show: Martin Van Buren, Country Gentleman and Progressive Farmer, 1841-1862.” New York History 85 (Spring 2004): 93-121.
• Irelan, John Robert. History of the Life, Administration and Times of Martin Van Buren (1887).
• Leonard, Gerald. The Invention of Party Politics: Federalism, Popular Sovereignty, and Constitutional Development in Jacksonian Illinois (2002).
• ________. “Party as a ‘Political Safeguard of Federalism’: Martin Van Buren and the Constitutional Theory of Party Politics.” Rutgers Law Review 54 (Fall 2001): 221-281.
• Leonard, Gerald, and Saul Cornell, The Partisan Republic: Democracy, Exclusion, and the Fall of the Founders' Constitution, 1780s-1830s (2019).
• Lucas, M. Philip. “Martin Van Buren as Party Leader and at Andrew Jackson’s Right Hand.” In A Companion to the Antebellum Presidents, 1837-1861, ed. Joel H. Silbey (2014).
• Lynch, Dennis T. An Epoch and a Man: Martin Van Buren and His Times, 2 vols. (1929).
• MacDonald, William. “The Jackson and Van Buren Papers.” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 17 (April 1906): 231-38.
• McBride, Spencer W. “When Joseph Smith Met Martin Van Buren: Mormonism and the Politics of Religious Liberty in Nineteenth-Century America.” Church History 85 (March 2016): 150-158.
• Mintz, Max M. “The Political Ideas of Martin Van Buren.” New York History 30 (October 1949): 422-448.
• Morrison, Michael A. “Martin Van Buren, the Democracy, and the Partisan Politics of Texas Annexation.” Journal of Southern History 61 (November 1995): 695-724.
• Mushkat, Jerome, and Joseph G. Rayback. Martin Van Buren: Law, Politics, and the Shaping of Republican Ideology (1997).
• Nigro, Felix A. “The Van Buren Confirmation before the Senate.” Western Political Quarterly 14 (March 1961): 148-159.
• Niven, John. Martin Van Buren: The Romantic Age of American Politics (1983).
• Parks, Gordon Elliott. “Martin Van Buren and the Re-Organization of the Democratic Party, 1841-1844.” Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1965.
• Pasley, Jeffrey L. “Minnows, Spies, and Aristocrats: The Social Crisis of Congress in the Age of Martin Van Buren.” Journal of the Early Republic 27 (Winter 2007): 599-653.
• Rayback, Joseph G. “Martin Van Buren: His Place in the History of New York and the United States.” New York History64 (April 1983): 120-135.
• ________. “Martin Van Buren’s Break with James K. Polk: The Record.” New York History 36 (January 1955): 51-62.
• ________. “Martin Van Buren’s Desire for Revenge in the Campaign of 1848.” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 40 (March 1954): 707-716.
• ________. “A Myth Re-Examined: Martin Van Buren’s Role in the Presidential Election of 1816.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 124, no. 2 (29 April 1980): 106-118.
• Remini, Robert V. Martin Van Buren and the Making of the Democratic Party (1959).
• ________. “Martin Van Buren and the Tariff of Abominations.” American Historical Review 63 (July 1958): 903-917.
• Roper, Donald M. “Martin Van Buren as Tocqueville’s Lawyer: The Jurisprudence of Politics.” Journal of the Early Republic 2 (Summer 1982): 169-189.
• Shade, William G. “‘The Most Delicate and Exciting Topics’: Martin Van Buren, Slavery, and the Election of 1836.” Journal of the Early Republic 18 (Fall 1998): 459-484.
• Shepard, Edward M. Martin Van Buren (1888).
• Silbey, Joel H. Martin Van Buren and the Emergence of American Popular Politics (2005).
• ________. Party Over Section: The Rough and Ready Presidential Election of 1848 (2009).
• Smith, Richard Williams. “The Career of Martin Van Buren in Connection with the Slavery Controversy Through the Election of 1840.” Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 1959.
• Widmer, Ted. Martin Van Buren (2005).
• Wilson, Major. “Lincoln and Van Buren in the Steps of the Fathers: Another Look at the Lyceum Address.” Civil War History 29 (September 1983): 197-211.
• ________. The Presidency of Martin Van Buren (1984).

Reference Sources.

• Kohan, Carol E. Historic Furnishings Report for "Lindenwald" (1986)
• Richards, Leonard L., Marla R. Miller, and Erik Gilg. A Return to His Native Town: Martin Van Buren's Life at Lindenwald, 1839-1862. A Historic Resource Study (2006).
• Sloan, Irving J., ed. Martin Van Buren, 1782-1862: Chronology—Documents—Bibliographical Aids (1969).
• West, Elizabeth Howard, comp. Calendar of the Papers of Martin Van Buren (1910).
• West, Lucy Fisher, ed. The Papers of Martin Van Buren: Guide and Index to General Correspondence and Miscellaneous Documents (1989).