| International Standard Book Number |
9781982140724
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| International Standard Book Number |
1982140720
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| Personal Name |
Romano, Lois, author.
|
| Title Statement |
An inconvenient widow : the torment, trial, and triumph of Mary Todd Lincoln / Lois Romano.
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| Edition Statement |
First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.
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| Imprint |
©2026.
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| Imprint |
New York : Simon & Schuster, [2026]
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| Physical Description |
xiii, 463 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm.
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| Bibliography, Etc. Note |
Includes bibliographical references (pages [297]-344) and index.
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| Formatted Contents Note |
Becoming Mary: pain and priviledge -- Coming of age: education and enlightenment -- Looking for a husband -- The most miserable man living -- Becoming Mrs. Lincoln -- Eighth and Jackson -- Mrs. Lincoln goes to Washington -- Out of the darkness -- At long last, a win -- Elation, expectations, and missteps -- The chaotic road to the White House -- Becoming Mrs. President Lincoln -- Hellcat on the loose -- For the love of shopping -- Target on her back -- The ball -- The idolized son -- Circles of death -- Family ties that do not bind -- An end in sight -- Fear -- The assassination -- Nowhere to go -- Bereaved and broken -- A home of her own -- A second assassination -- The betrayal -- Self-banishment -- Anguish, desolation, and decline -- The insanity trial of Mary Lincoln -- The escape -- The final chapter.
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| Summary, Etc. |
"Mary Lincoln was at the center of politics at a time when society's expectations for women were rigid and circumscribed. The product of Southern aristocracy, she grew up among an influential clan of politicians and elites who founded Lexington, Kentucky. Mary's early exposure to the male-dominated world of politics instilled in her a keen political acumen and a fierce ambition. Proclaiming as a child that she was destined to become the wife of a president, she played a crucial role in boosting her husband to greatness. But her hopes for a triumphant experience at the pinnacle of power were lost to the Civil War and unfathomable family tragedies. Still, Mary persevered. She steadfastly supported the Union war effort, visited encampments, tended to wounded soldiers, and generously donated money and gifts to refugees from slavery. She was an unconventional, larger-than-life character who dressed too ostentatiously, grieved too publicly, suffered a shopping addiction, and seemed unable or unwilling to corral her emotions, her temper, and her opinions. She made enemies--influential men who wrote her story for her, often unfairly. After Lincoln was assassinated, she was all but abandoned by the nation he had given his life to defend and preserve. Former Washington Post writer and columnist Lois Romano rectifies the tortured legacy of Mary Todd Lincoln, who was failed at nearly every turn in her widowhood--by her family, by her government, by medical professionals ill-equipped to diagnose her mental illness, and finally, by history. Romano draws on hundreds of archives, letters, and memoirs to provide the most complete portrait--of not simply of an inconvenient widow, but of a brilliant and flawed woman, who possessed uncommon tenacity in the face of extraordinary adversity and personal torment, and helped launch one of America's greatest presidents." -- Amazon.
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| Subject-Personal Name |
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865
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| Subject-Personal Name |
Lincoln, Mary Todd, 1818-1882.
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Presidents' spouses United States Biography.
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| Index Term-Genre/Form |
Biographies.
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