Mary's friends

[kerry]

I agree those letters don't indicate she was writing a book, but I was responding to the idea that she never considered commenting and had only other things on her mind. The book idea comes from press reports (in 1868, supposedly called Five Years in the White House, and 1870, when it was reported she was writing her memoirs in Germany) and what Reid said while alive and in his obituary. It's by no means conclusive, it just raises my curiosity.

Then there is this, in which she discusses a book proposal, but it supports the argument that she was not interested in writing a book. https://historical.ha.com/itm/political/...ion-120115

This would have more information about it but I've never seen the letters: https://www.worldcat.org/title/henry-dem...ef_results

Here is a free newspaper site clipping (not much detail, some had the alleged Logan ring story later, this just sounds like a throwaway joke). It was around the time of the Old Clothes Scandal, but it was reported that politicians had offered money for the clothes once the scandal broke, but that she'd basically said she wanted to keep calling them out and refused it. She may have used writing a book as a threat and that's where the rumor originated.

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/s...nge&page=1

It's in the section taken from the Boston Post.

I will have to look back at earlier letters, but I don't think any of them mention a book. It's clear that while she had a lot to say, she was reluctant to go public with any of it. But she did give interviews when she felt she needed to, from the asylum and at the end of her life. It wouldn't surprise me if she'd written a draft of something in anger and then thought better of it.