The Darkish Days of Abraham Lincoln’s Widow, as Revealed by Her Personal Letters

Written in 1927 however barred from well timed publication by the Lincoln household, The Darkish Days of Abraham Lincoln’s Widow, as Revealed by Her Personal Letters relies on practically two dozen intimate letters written between Mary Lincoln and her shut good friend Myra Bradwell primarily in the course of the former’s 1875 incarceration in an insane asylum. By the Nineteen Twenties most accounts of Mrs. Lincoln centered on her detrimental qualities and dismissed her as “loopy.” Bradwell’s granddaughter Myra Helmer Pritchard wrote this distinctly sympathetic manuscript on the behest of her mom, who wished to vindicate Mary Lincoln within the public eye by printing the personal correspondence. Pritchard fervently defends Mrs. Lincoln’s conduct and sanity, arguing that she was not insane however quite the sufferer of an overzealous son who had his mom dedicated.

The manuscript and letters had been thought to have been destroyed, however happily the Lincolns’ household lawyer saved copies in a trunk, the place historian Jason Emerson found them in 2005. Whereas leaving the manuscript intact, Emerson has enhanced it with an introduction and detailed annotations. He fills in factual gaps; gives background on names, locations, and dates; and analyzes Pritchard’s interpretations, making clear the place she was proper and the place her ardour to guard Mrs. Lincoln led to lower than meticulous analysis and incorrect conclusions. This quantity options an easy-to-follow format that showcases Pritchard’s textual content on the left-hand pages and Emerson’s insightful annotations on the right-hand pages. 

Following probably the most revered and reviled, well-known and notorious of the First Girls, this guide gives a novel perspective of Mrs. Lincoln’s post-White Home years, with an emphasis on her dedication to a sanitarium. Emerson’s contributions make this quantity a priceless addition to the examine of the Lincoln household. This fascinating work offers immediately’s Lincoln fanatics the possibility to learn this intriguing interpretation of the previous First Woman that predates practically each different guide written about her.