two questions

[Rob Wick]

Mike,

I won't try to answer your first question, but I can answer the second.

Yes, parts of the diary considered detrimental to MTL were excised by Theodore Pease and James G. Randall. As part of the deal between the Illinois Historical Society and the Browning heirs, the information had to be deleted before they could publish the diary. In editing Jesse Weik's book "The Real Lincoln: A Portrait," Michael Burlingame publishes what was excised for the first time.

Interestingly (at least to me), the Browning family was negotiating with various trade publishers for the rights to publish the diary. Harper and Brothers sought Ida Tarbell to review the material and give her opinion on its commercial viability. Tarbell didn't think the diary, as was published by Illinois, would be a large commercial seller, and there is some evidence in her papers that she would have kept the MTL material in the book had she been able to. I have Tarbell's papers on the publication, along with Randall and Pease's papers. The ALPLM has the papers Burlingame utilized along with other papers by Randall and Pease.

Best
Rob