Mary Lincoln for the Ages

[L Verge]

Mary Lincoln For The Ages by Jason Emerson: Hold off on spending your money. My copy just arrived today, and my first impression after seeing what it really is was, "Jason has fallen into the trap of college professors who must 'publish or perish.'" This is a bibliography on what has already been written about Mary Lincoln over the past century and more.

His introduction is really his only substantive contribution, and it appears to be a collection of personal complaints about other writers. I had to giggle at some comments of his because he is so guilty of condemning Mary -- just what he is finding fault with in others. He places a lot of blame on Herndon and Jean Baker for laying shaky foundations for what everybody else wrote, spoke, or believed about Mary. "These two books are responsible for both showing Mary as she was during the time in which she lived and completely corrupting any honest understanding of her character by the overt biases that those authors brought into their work." Jason already knows this, but I have always considered him biased against the lady.

His text runs just 37 pages, and then Part Two begins 142 pages of an "Analytical Bibliography," followed by 7 pages of Notes, 2 pages of "Index of Essay 'Common Canon," 4 pages of Index of Authors and Editors," another 13 pages of "Index of Titles," and finally 3 pages of "Index of Subjects."

Top it off with a paperback book that retails for $30.