Mary Lincoln Biography Of A Marriage

Author : Michael Burlingame
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1643137352
Total Pages : 209 pages
Book Rating : 4.53/5 ( download)

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Download or read book An American Marriage written by Michael Burlingame and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An enlightening narrative exploring an oft-overlooked aspect of the sixteenth president's life, An American Marriage reveals the tragic story of Abraham Lincoln’s marriage to Mary Todd. Abraham Lincoln was apparently one of those men who regarded “connubial bliss” as an untenable fantasy. During the Civil War, he pardoned a Union soldier who had deserted the army to return home to wed his sweetheart. As the president signed a document sparing the soldier's life, Lincoln said: “I want to punish the young man—probably in less than a year he will wish I had withheld the pardon.” Based on thirty years of research, An American Marriage describes and analyzes why Lincoln had good reason to regret his marriage to Mary Todd. This revealing narrative shows that, as First Lady, Mary Lincoln accepted bribes and kickbacks, sold permits and pardons, engaged in extortion, and peddled influence. The reader comes to learn that Lincoln wed Mary Todd because, in all likelihood, she seduced him and then insisted that he protect her honor. Perhaps surprisingly, the 5’2” Mrs. Lincoln often physically abused her 6’4” husband, as well as her children and servants; she humiliated her husband in public; she caused him, as president, to fear that she would disgrace him publicly. Unlike her husband, she was not profoundly opposed to slavery and hardly qualifies as the “ardent abolitionist” that some historians have portrayed. While she providid a useful stimulus to his ambition, she often “crushed his spirit,” as his law partner put it. In the end, Lincoln may not have had as successful a presidency as he did—where he showed a preternatural ability to deal with difficult people—if he had not had so much practice at home.

Author : Ruth Painter Randall
Publisher : Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1787200264
Total Pages : 482 pages
Book Rating : 4.65/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mary Lincoln: Biography of a Marriage written by Ruth Painter Randall and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2016-08-09 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More fascinating than fiction, this is the moving story of the most misunderstood woman in American history... The truth about Mary Lincoln has for nearly a century been hidden under a mountain of myth. They said Lincoln really loved Ann Rutledge. That he had tried to avoid marriage to Mary Todd, that his wife hurt him politically though she drove him to the Presidency, that she embarrassed him financially as well as socially and inflicted on him the agony of adjustment to her psychopathic personality. Now for the first time, the true woman beneath the myth is presented. The veil of legend surrounding Mary Lincoln is torn aside and an entirely new picture of a woman and a marriage emerges. Here, through the eyes of the people who knew the Lincolns, through the long-lost telegrams and letters they sent each other, comes the story of their day-to-day life together. It begins in Springfield, and there, many years later, it ends. But the truth of those years gives evidence to restore Mary Todd Lincoln to her rightful place in history and in the affections of the American people. Acclaimed by the critics... “Never has such a story seemed better worth telling or better told.”—SATURDAY REVIEW “This is an important and definitive volume.”—AMERICAN HISTORY REVIEW “Out of the most searching scrutiny ever leveled on the Lincolns’ family affairs comes the picture of a tempestuous yet essentially happy marriage.”—NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE “This is a very moving book. It is also a nice example of what a first-rate historian can do with a difficult subject.”—THE NEW YORKER “It is a book that can be recommended without reservation: A combination of profound research and fine prose style, it meets both the requirements of the Lincoln scholar and the casual reader who is looking for a truly fascinating story.”—SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

Author : Ruth Painter Randall
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781258032821
Total Pages : 414 pages
Book Rating : 4.21/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mary Lincoln written by Ruth Painter Randall and published by . This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Catherine Clinton
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0060760419
Total Pages : 436 pages
Book Rating : 4.10/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mrs. Lincoln written by Catherine Clinton and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-01-19 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abraham Lincoln is the most revered president in American history, but the woman at the center of his life—his wife, Mary—has remained a historical enigma. One of the most tragic and mysterious of nineteenth-century figures, Mary Lincoln and her story symbolize the pain and loss of Civil War America. Authoritative and utterly engrossing, Mrs. Lincoln is the long-awaited portrait of the woman who so richly contributed to Lincoln's life and legacy.

Author : Jason Emerson
Publisher : SIU Press
ISBN 13 : 0809387557
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.57/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Madness of Mary Lincoln written by Jason Emerson and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2007-09-25 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER, Russell P. Strange Memorial Book of the Year Award from the Illinois State Historical Society, 2007! University Press Books for Public and Secondary Schools 2013 edition In 2005, historian Jason Emerson discovered a steamer trunk formerly owned by Robert Todd Lincoln's lawyer and stowed in an attic for forty years. The trunk contained a rare find: twenty-five letters pertaining to Mary Todd Lincoln's life and insanity case, letters assumed long destroyed by the Lincoln family. Mary wrote twenty of the letters herself, more than half from the insane asylum to which her son Robert had her committed, and many in the months and years after. The Madness of Mary Lincoln is the first examination of Mary Lincoln’s mental illness based on the lost letters, and the first new interpretation of the insanity case in twenty years. This compelling story of the purported insanity of one of America’s most tragic first ladies provides new and previously unpublished materials, including the psychiatric diagnosis of Mary’s mental illness and her lost will. Emerson charts Mary Lincoln’s mental illness throughout her life and describes how a predisposition to psychiatric illness and a life of mental and emotional trauma led to her commitment to the asylum. The first to state unequivocally that Mary Lincoln suffered from bipolar disorder, Emerson offers a psychiatric perspective on the insanity case based on consultations with psychiatrist experts. This book reveals Abraham Lincoln’s understanding of his wife’s mental illness and the degree to which he helped keep her stable. It also traces Mary’s life after her husband’s assassination, including her severe depression and physical ailments, the harsh public criticism she endured, the Old Clothes Scandal, and the death of her son Tad. The Madness of Mary Lincoln is the story not only of Mary, but also of Robert. It details how he dealt with his mother’s increasing irrationality and why it embarrassed his Victorian sensibilities; it explains the reasons he had his mother committed, his response to her suicide attempt, and her plot to murder him. It also shows why and how he ultimately agreed to her release from the asylum eight months early, and what their relationship was like until Mary’s death. This historical page-turner provides readers for the first time with the lost letters that historians had been in search of for eighty years.

Author : Kenneth J. Winkle
Publisher : SIU Press
ISBN 13 : 0809330490
Total Pages : 162 pages
Book Rating : 4.92/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Abraham and Mary Lincoln written by Kenneth J. Winkle and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2011-09-30 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For decades Abraham and Mary Lincoln’s marriage has been characterized as discordant and tumultuous. In Abraham and Mary Lincoln, author Kenneth J. Winkle goes beyond the common image of the couple, illustrating that although the waters of the Lincoln household were far from calm, the Lincolns were above all a house united. Calling upon their own words and the reminiscences of family members and acquaintances, Winkle traces the Lincolns from their starkly contrasting childhoods, through their courtship and rise to power, to their years in the White House during the Civil War, ultimately revealing a dynamic love story set against the backdrop of the greatest peril the nation has ever seen. When the awkward but ambitious Lincoln landed Mary Todd, people were surprised by their seeming incompatibility. Lincoln, lacking in formal education and social graces, came from the world of hardscrabble farmers on the American frontier. Mary, by contrast, received years of schooling and came from an established, wealthy, slave-owning family. Yet despite the social gulf between them, these two formidable personalities forged a bond that proved unshakable during the years to come. Mary provided Lincoln with the perfect partner in ambition—one with connections, political instincts, and polish. For Mary, Lincoln was her “diamond in the rough,” a man whose ungainly appearance and background belied a political acumen to match her own. While each played their role in the marriage perfectly— Lincoln doggedly pursuing success and Mary hosting lavish political soirées—their partnership was not without contention. Mary—once described as “the wildcat of her age”—frequently expressed frustration with the limitations placed on her by Victorian social strictures, exhibiting behavior that sometimes led to public friction between the couple. Abraham’s work would at times keep him away from home for weeks, leaving Mary alone in Springfield. The true test of the Lincolns’ dedication to each other began in the White House, as personal tragedy struck their family and civil war erupted on American soil. The couple faced controversy and heartbreak as the death of their young son left Mary grief-stricken and dependent upon séances and spiritualists; as charges of disloyalty hounded the couple regarding Mary’s young sister, a Confederate widow; and as public demands grew strenuous that their son Robert join the war. The loss of all privacy and the constant threat of kidnapping and assassination took its toll on the entire family. Yet until a fateful night in the Ford Theatre in 1865, Abraham and Mary Lincoln stood firmly together—he as commander-in-chief during America’s gravest military crisis, and she as First Lady of a divided country that needed the White House to emerge as a respected symbol of national unity and power. Despite the challenges they faced, the Lincolns’ life together fully embodied the maxim engraved on their wedding bands: love is eternal. Abraham and Mary Lincoln is a testament to the power of a stormy union that held steady through the roughest of seas.

Author : Tayari Jones
Publisher : Algonquin Books
ISBN 13 : 1616207604
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.01/5 ( download)

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Download or read book An American Marriage written by Tayari Jones and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB 2018 SELECTION “One of my favorite parts of summer is deciding what to read when things slow down just a bit, whether it’s on a vacation with family or just a quiet afternoon . . . An American Marriage by Tayari Jones is a moving portrayal of the effects of a wrongful conviction on a young African-American couple.” —Barack Obama “Haunting . . . Beautifully written.” —The New York Times Book Review “Brilliant and heartbreaking . . . Unforgettable.” —USA Today “A tense and timely love story . . . Packed with brave questions about race and class.” —People “Compelling.” —The Washington Post “Epic . . . Transcendent . . . Triumphant.” —Elle Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy’s time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together. This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward—with hope and pain—into the future.

Author : Michael Burlingame
Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 1421445565
Total Pages : 659 pages
Book Rating : 4.64/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Abraham Lincoln written by Michael Burlingame and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2023-10-10 with total page 659 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hailed as the definitive portrait of the sixteenth president, Lincoln scholar Michael Burlingame's impressive two-volume biography has been masterfully abridged and revised. Sixteenth president of the United States, the Great Emancipator, and a surpassingly eloquent champion of national unity, freedom, and democracy, Abraham Lincoln is arguably the most studied and admired of all Americans. Michael Burlingame's astonishing Abraham Lincoln: A Life, an updated, condensed version of the 2,000-page two-volume set that The Atlantic hailed as one of the five best books of 2009, offers fresh interpretations of this endlessly fascinating American leader. Based on deep research in unpublished sources as well as newly digitized sources, this work reveals how Lincoln's character and personality were the North's secret weapon in the Civil War, the key variables that spelled the difference between victory and defeat. He was a model of psychological maturity and a fully individuated man whose influence remains unrivaled in the history of American public life. Burlingame chronicles Lincoln's childhood and early development, romantic attachments and losses, his love of learning, legal training, and courtroom career as well as his political ambition, his term as congressman in the late 1840s, and his serious bouts of depression in early adulthood. Burlingame recounts, in fresh detail, the Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln marriage and traces the mounting moral criticism of slavery that revived his political career and won this Springfield lawyer the presidency in 1860. This abridgement delivers Burlingame's signature insight into Lincoln as a young man, a father, and a politician. Lincoln speaks to us not only as a champion of freedom, democracy, and national unity but also as a source of inspiration. Few have achieved his historical importance, but many can profit from his personal example, encouraged by the knowledge that despite a lifetime of troubles, he became a model of psychological maturity, moral clarity, and unimpeachable integrity. His presence and his leadership inspired his contemporaries; his life story will do the same for generations to come.

Author : Mary Todd Lincoln
Publisher : Fromm International
ISBN 13 : 9780880640732
Total Pages : 750 pages
Book Rating : 4.31/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mary Todd Lincoln written by Mary Todd Lincoln and published by Fromm International. This book was released on 1987 with total page 750 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The personal correspondences of Mary Todd Lincoln create an intimate portrait of her life and marriage to Lincoln as well as her struggles after his death

Author : Jason Emerson
Publisher : SIU Press
ISBN 13 : 0809336766
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.60/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mary Lincoln for the Ages written by Jason Emerson and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2019-04-19 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this sweeping analytical bibliography, Jason Emerson goes beyond the few sources usually employed to contextualize Mary Lincoln’s life and thoroughly reexamines nearly every word ever written about her. In doing so, this book becomes the prime authority on Mary Lincoln, points researchers to key underused sources, reveals how views about her have evolved over the years, and sets the stage for new questions and debates about the themes and controversies that have defined her legacy. Mary Lincoln for the Ages first articulates how reliance on limited sources has greatly restricted our understanding of the subject, evaluating their flaws and benefits and pointing out the shallowness of using the same texts to study her life. Emerson then presents more than four hundred bibliographical entries of nonfiction books and pamphlets, scholarly and popular articles, journalism, literature, and juvenilia. More than just listings of titles and publication dates, each entry includes Emerson’s deft analysis of these additional works on Mary Lincoln that should be used—but rarely have been—to better understand who she was during her life and why we see her as we do. The volume also includes rarely used illustrations, including some that have never before appeared in print. A roadmap for a firmer, more complete grasp of Mary Lincoln’s place in the historical record, this is the first and only extensive, analytical bibliography of the subject. In highlighting hundreds of overlooked sources, Emerson changes the paradigm of Mary Lincoln’s legacy.