07-14-2015, 02:40 PM
Has anyone read this Jason Emerson-edited publication of Myra Helmer Pritchard's original work in the 1920s featuring a compilation of letters from the widow Lincoln to her friend Myra Bradwell? This compilation, I believe, is of material that Mrs. Robert Lincoln paid about $20,000 to deep-six. Luckily, one copy escaped and was found by Emerson in 2005. It was written by the Bradwells granddaughter, Myra Helmer Pritchard and contains about two dozen letters.
I enjoyed one reviewer's comments:
"Stringent Victorian social dictates were extremely unforgiving of anyone acting outside the prescribed norms. Mary Todd Lincoln was demonized and satirized for her bizarre actions during her lifetime as well as in the years following her death.
"The medical community was unable to help Mrs. Lincoln by accurately diagnosing her mental and physical maladies while the public proved unsympathetic and hostile to a wife who witnessed her husband’s assassination as well as the loss of three children to disease.
"The world will remember and laud the immortal Abraham Lincoln, but it continues to show little sympathy to the woman who grieved his loss more than anyone. Jason Emerson’s work will do much to change that perception."
If you have read the book, what are your opinions of it?
I enjoyed one reviewer's comments:
"Stringent Victorian social dictates were extremely unforgiving of anyone acting outside the prescribed norms. Mary Todd Lincoln was demonized and satirized for her bizarre actions during her lifetime as well as in the years following her death.
"The medical community was unable to help Mrs. Lincoln by accurately diagnosing her mental and physical maladies while the public proved unsympathetic and hostile to a wife who witnessed her husband’s assassination as well as the loss of three children to disease.
"The world will remember and laud the immortal Abraham Lincoln, but it continues to show little sympathy to the woman who grieved his loss more than anyone. Jason Emerson’s work will do much to change that perception."
If you have read the book, what are your opinions of it?