‘Ill luck was my faithful attendant’

Here is the melancholy story of Mary Todd Lincoln, widow of President Abraham Lincoln, who was shot next to her on 12 April 1865 as they were watching a play. He died three days later. The book has a single theme with two strands: was Mrs. Lincoln insane before as well as after her husband’s murder? And in subsequent years was she treated with continuous and sympathetic care by her son, Robert, or was he a greedy monster who ensured that his mother was declared insane so that he could get his hands on her substantial estate?

Jason Emerson, a journalist and specialist on the Lincoln family, has examined every available document, especially letters, including some he discovered in a trunk never previously opened. Part of this material contends that, while Mrs Lincoln was a distraught person by the age of 52, owing to the loss of her husband and other close family members, her cunning son also victimised her.