Mary's friends

[kerry]

(04-02-2017 11:03 AM)Rob Wick Wrote:  

Quote:Thanks for your input - there are a lot of articles that surfaced in 1868 about her writing memoirs, which he could have planted for attention, but they didn't mention him as the author. This was right after Behind the Scenes, so I was thinking maybe there was confusion or Mary briefly considered a response book. But in 1868 the papers claimed to have seen a chapter of it, and reported later she was working on it in Germany - obviously could be made up. But Reid's story matches in that she did a lot of work in Germany and mailed it to him after the Dundee visit. And there are letters floating around where she does discuss a book with someone in America around that time. It probably got shut down, but it'd be something if it still existed. Then there's this: https://www.worldcat.org/title/henry-dem...ef_results

So it seems pretty likely she did work on a book at some point - I think there is a letter to Deming where she says not at this time, she's reconsidered. But maybe in Germany when she was relatively let alone she reconsidered, especially after the Behind the Scenes.

Just wondering if you could post links to those newspaper articles or at least share the citations, as well as the letters you mention? In all I've read about Mary Lincoln, this is the first I've heard that she was considering writing a book. Neither Jean Baker nor Carl Sandburg/Paul Angle mention it. Plus, I'm curious as to why she would write a response to Behind the Scenes when she never (to my knowledge) considered writing, or having written on her behalf, a refutation of Herndon's lecture on Ann Rutledge, other than the letter James Smith wrote and had published in the Chicago Tribune.

Thanks.

Best
Rob

It's not mentioned in most of the biographies, but it was reported at the time. Since it never came to fruition, I guess it didn't really merit mention, and it obviously could have been just a rumor. But even the major biographies don't mention some fairly significant things that are found in her letters and other sources - too much information and speculation, I guess. I've been doing a lot of research on the newspaper sites that make these searches much easier, and I was surprised by a lot of stuff I'd never seen before.

I don't know if this will work but I'll try - here's one of the articles in 1868: https://www.newspapers.com/image/118807441/

I don't think she was writing it necessarily in direct response to Behind the Scenes but in general to clear up a lot of misconceptions - it was going to be more political and about Lincoln, not her debts. This would have been less of a shocker once Behind the Scenes came out and basically left her with nothing to lose reputation-wise. Reid claimed it was called "Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln." The book that was mentioned earlier was called "Five Years in the White House." People claimed it was being written by Olive Logan. Then when she was in Germany, she was reported to be writing "her memoirs."

In her letters she several times mentions she wrote a reply to Herndon and asks someone like Smith to edit it and publish it - she then would say she had decided against getting involved. In several letters she encourages various people to leak stories to the press - Elizabeth Keckley's defense pre-Behind-the-Scenes, the religion issue via John Todd Stuart, the Anne Rutledge issue via Smith and Reed, her poverty via the Ornes, her not being engaged to account via Forney/the Ornes, and Robert's behavior (which got her threatened with commitment again, so she stopped advocating for the hit piece against him).

I do think she wanted her story out there, but was discouraged from doing so. The interviews she gave the last year of her life (also mostly left out of biographies - this has been my first research project) were kind of out-of-nowhere after so much silence, but she did them. There is a letter floating around the auction sites where she talks about a possible book project, but decides against it. I will let you know if I locate the link.