MARY LINCOLN: Biography of a Marriage

by Ruth Painter Randall ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

A passionate defense of Mary Lincoln and a revelation-conclusively documented- of a marriage rooted in unremitting devotion and mutual love. Bit by bit the evidence is examined, the detractors (particularly Herndon, Lamon, Nicolay and Hay-and those who picked up and exaggerated and spread their claims) are analyzed, their unhappy personal relations with Mrs. Lincoln exposed, the slender threads of unsupported evidence broken. The result is an intimate closeup of the years of marriage in a piece of scholarly research-bearing out the subtitle ""Biography of a Marriage"". We meet Lincoln, the uncouth and struggling young lawyer, self educated but lacking the social amenities; we meet Mary Todd, vivid, lively, gently reared, exceptionally well-educated for her day, and determined to marry where she found love and congeniality. We see the factors that operated to keep them apart- the truth of the broken engagement (no groom absent at the altar however)- the ultimate sudden marriage despite the opposition- the years of poverty and happiness despite sorrows-the ""in-law"" troubles, on both sides, and Lincoln's gradual forging ahead. Although this reader claims reasonable familiarity with the Lincoln story, this approach afforded, at every point, new and enlightening material, and carried the story through the tragedies of the administration, the successive shocks that intensified Mary Lincoln's instability and the cruel slanders that destroyed her years of widowhood. Not a straightforward biography this, but research, in which the reader goes along, step by step, with the scholar.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1952

Categories: NONFICTION