Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
An Inconvenient Widow: The Torment, Trial, and Triumph of Mary Todd Lincoln

An Inconvenient Widow: The Torment, Trial, and Triumph of Mary Todd Lincoln

Romano, Lois

Hardcover

Biographies GeneralPresidents & Heads of State19th Century United States History

Publisher Price: $31.00

ISBN10: 1982140720
ISBN13: 9781982140724
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: May 19 2026
Pages: 480
Weight: 1.50
Height: 1.40 Width: 6.30 Depth: 9.10
Language: English
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A revelatory new biography of one of the most misunderstood and vilified First Ladies in American history: Mary Todd Lincoln.

Mary Lincoln was at the center of politics at a time when society's expectations for women were rigid and circumscribed. The product of Southern aristocracy, she grew up among an influential clan of politicians and elites who founded Lexington, Kentucky. Mary's early exposure to the male-dominated world of politics instilled in her a keen political acumen and a fierce ambition. Proclaiming as a child that she was destined to become the wife of a president, she played a crucial role in boosting her husband to greatness.

But her hopes for a triumphant experience at the pinnacle of power were lost to the Civil War and unfathomable family tragedies. Still, Mary persevered. She steadfastly supported the Union war effort, visited encampments, tended to wounded soldiers, and generously donated money and gifts to refugees from slavery. She was an unconventional, larger-than-life character who dressed too ostentatiously, grieved too publicly, suffered a shopping addiction, and seemed unable or unwilling to corral her emotions, her temper, and her opinions. She made enemies--influential men who wrote her story for her, often unfairly. After Lincoln was assassinated, she was all but abandoned by the nation he had given his life to defend and preserve.

Former Washington Post writer and columnist Lois Romano rectifies the tortured legacy of Mary Todd Lincoln, who was failed at nearly every turn in her widowhood--by her family, by her government, by medical professionals ill-equipped to diagnose her mental illness, and finally, by history. Romano draws on hundreds of archives, letters, and memoirs to provide the most complete portrait--of not simply of an inconvenient widow, but of a brilliant and flawed woman, who possessed uncommon tenacity in the face of extraordinary adversity and personal torment, and helped launch one of America's greatest presidents.

Also in

Biographies General

View All