The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln by Ruth Painter Randall

[Susan Higginbotham]

This book, published in 1957, details the courtship of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd. with some sidelights on some of their friends and acquaintances, such as Joshua Speed, Merce Levering, and Matilda Edwards. Some of its conclusions as to the cause of the couple's breakup and their reconciliation have recently been challenged, but I'd still recommend it to anyone interested in the Lincolns as a couple and especially to anyone who enjoyed Randall's Mary Lincoln: Biography of a Marriage (written before this book was published). For what it's worth, I got it from the library and liked it well enough to buy a copy for myself.