Product Description

As a girl growing up in Kentucky, she lived a sheltered, privileged life filled with picnics and plantation balls. Vivacious, impulsive, and intoxicated by politics, she is a Todd of Lexington, an aristocratic family whose ancestors defeated the British. But no one knows her secret fears and anxieties. Although she is courted by the most eligible suitors in the land, including future senator Stephen Douglas, it is a gangly lawyer from Illinois who captures her heart. After a stormy courtship and a broken engagement, Abraham Lincoln will marry twenty-four-year-old Mary Todd and give her a ring inscribed with the words “Love Is Eternal.”

But their happiness won’t last nearly so long. Their first child will be born under the gathering clouds of a civil war, and three more follow. As Lincoln’s star rises, the pleasure-loving Mary learns, often the hard way, the rules of being a politician’s wife. But by the time the fiery storm of war passes, tragedy will have claimed two sons, scandal will shadow her days as First Lady, and an assassin’s bullet will take Lincoln himself, leaving Mary alone and all but forgotten by the nation that owed her husband its survival.

Yet it is in the years to come that Mary Todd Lincoln will truly come into her own. In public, she will fight to preserve Lincoln’s memory even as she battles a bitterly contested insanity trial. In private, she will struggle with depression and addiction as she endures the betrayals–both real and imagined–of family and friends.

With a gifted novelist’s imagination and a historian’s eye for detail, Barbara Hambly tells a story of astonishing scope, richly peopled with real-life characters and their fictional counterparts, a tour-de-force tale of power, politics, and the role of women in nineteenth- century America. The result is a Mary Todd Lincoln few have seen and none will forget–the fascinating, controversial woman of whom her husband could say: “My wife is as handsome as when she was a girl and I fell in love with her; and what is more, I have never fallen out”–Mary Todd, the woman who loved Abraham Lincoln.


From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #829995 in Books
• Published on: 2005-12-27
• Released on: 2005-12-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 624 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Hambly (A Free Man of Color, etc.) has a knack for bringing historical figures to life in all their flawed humanity. This touching portrait of Mary Todd, a brilliant but troubled belle in Kentucky when she meets Abraham Lincoln in 1839, recounts Mary's personal struggles and triumphs and describes the general state of women in the 19th century, as well as supplies an evenhanded overview of the political and practical issues surrounding the emancipation of the slaves. With her sharp intelligence, social skill and standing, and political astuteness, Mary seems the perfect partner for Lincoln. But her emotional problems hobble her from the start and worsen over the years under the tremendous strain of political life and with the terrible loss of three of her four sons as well as her husband. Ten years after Lincoln's assassination, Mary's sole remaining son is fighting a court battle to have his mother declared insane. Told from her own perspective and that of some fictionalized historical figures like Frederick Douglass, Mary's story, including her hard-won insight into her own difficulties and her addiction to her laudanum-laced medicine, is moving. Despite a jarring abruptness to some of the changes in point of view and the slow pace of the narration, the novel paints a full, nuanced picture of a talented, tormented woman.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Hambly has painted a compelling fictional portrait of one of the most maligned and misunderstood First Ladies in American history. Born into a prominent Lexington family, pretty and passionate Mary Todd always had difficulty controlling her legendary temper. Plagued by headaches and spells even as a child, she suffered--according to the inadequate medical lexicon of the day--from female problems and a nervous disposition. Defying both her family and convention, the independent-minded Mary married a debt-ridden bumpkin with dubious long-term prospects. Even marriage to the undisputed love of her life did not bring her enduring happiness or contentment. Although she and Lincoln enjoyed an egalitarian partnership, she continued to be haunted by voices and visions that often led to fits of hysteria. Her delicate mental health was made even more precarious by the tragic and untimely deaths of three of her four sons and by her husband's assassination. Brought up on charges of lunacy by her son Robert in 1875, she fights for her own emancipation as she revisits pivotal episodes in her storied past. As the action stretches back and forth through time, an intelligent woman struggles to come to terms with depression and addiction in a society ill-equipped to cope with mental illness of any sort. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"From its perfect title to its beautiful poignant, last scene, this is a wonderful portrait of one of the most important, complex, and misunderstood figures in American history—a brilliant novel of the Civil War."
—Max Byrd

"Touching...Hambly has a knack for bringing historical figures to life in all their flawed humanity."
—Publishers Weekly


From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews

Fine historical novel
Preface: I am a librarian at a local public library. I am also a long-time FAN of Barbara Hambly's novels, both historical mysteries and her numerous fantasy works.

This book is insightful and thought-provoking. Hambly uses her fine ability to write sympathetic, yet very human characters to provide a credible portrait of Mary Todd Lincoln. Is this book the final word on Mrs. Lincoln? No. Do I have a greater awareness of the complexity of life in the American 19th century, especially from a woman's perspective? Yes!

Barbara Hambly is a historian by training and her ability to weave the details of a time and place make her historical (and fantasy!) books a pleasure to read. At times you can feel the oppressive humidity or find yourself wrapped in the sights and sounds of a parlor scene or find your heart beating in anticipation or fear along with Mrs. Lincoln.

Fans of Tracy Chevalier's novels may enjoy this title, as well as readers of Ahab's Wife by Sena Jester Naslund. If you find that you like Hambly's narrative style and American historical fiction, you might try her Benjamin January series that is set in New Orleans during the 1830s-40's. The first book in the series is A Free Man of Color.

A final note: If you are looking for a biographical work that focuses on life of Abraham Lincoln or a Civil War novel with lots of action scenes, this book is not for you. Nevertheless, I would encourage Civil War fiction readers to consider this book for the cultural context it provides to this pivotal period of American history.

Research, details provide context for Mary Todd Lincoln's story
Barbara Hambly's "The Emancipator's Wife" is a remarkably well researched fictional narrative of the life of Mary Todd Lincoln. That she lived with mental illness is not disputed - ample evidence exists to suggest that she was bi-polar. However, history has damned her for displaying anxiety and other symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, for shopping and relying excessively on "elixers" of the day (which were loaded with opiates and alcohol) to distract, soothe and medicate herself (both practices still commonly used by people to deal with PTSD symptoms and symtoms of other mental illnesses), and for daring to challange the narrow and confining societal role expected of her. I applaud Ms. Hambly for doing such a superb job of keeping these important contextual factors in the forefront of Mary Todd Lincoln's story.

Mary Todd Lincoln lived a fascinating life. She was well educated, connected to national political leaders through her own family and her family's friendships, and was allowed to partake in political maneuverings in ways that most women of her time were not. She lived through momentus historical times in the shaping of governments in several states and of the nation.

She also was an average woman with an average life full of losses due to violence, disease and the dangers of childbirth which were so common during this point in history. She was neglected as a child and had to manipulate and fight with numerous siblings and her step mother for attention. She was socially confined and limited by men and by the many women who subscribed to the male ideas of what female life should be. She competed with other "belles" of her Southern upper class for the attention of powerful men and for the glimmers of power that women connected to them were afforded. She found herself in an unfulfilling marriage and struggled against that reality, wanting desperately to be loved unconditionally, be a priority above her husband's career, and above else be happy. These things do not happen when you are married to an emotionally distant man who suffers from severe and chronic depression. But if Hambly's story is at all representative of Mary's relationship with Abraham Lincoln, it seems that his own struggles with mental illness and childhood tragedy allowed him to love her despite her flaws and to offer sympathy and safety to her when others would not. Their love story in this book is full of small sweet moments. It is easy to understand why Mary so desperately wanted more of him than she got.

The weakness in this book is that Hambly provides details about Mary's day to day life in minutiea at times - slowing the story and droning on uninteresting aspects. But perhaps this is done for effect - it is certainly an illustration of how boring the life of a "belle" who had an education and aspirations of her own could have been. For the most part, however, this is a unique story about a woman who has been greatly misrepresented. Hambly gives perspective and thus life to a woman usually seen as flatly overbearing, unreasonable and annoying. The backdrop of the socio-political and personal realities of Mary's time bring dimension to her life story, and make for a rather interesting and good book of historical fiction.

Great Novel!
The Emancipator's Wife by Barbara Hambly is a great novel...emphasis on the word NOVEL. I have noticed before reading the book that others have given it a less than superior rating on basis that not all of the facts on Mary lincoln's life were true and that is right. this book is not in any way a biography of Mary Lincoln's life. There are other numerious books out there that do that. The Emancipator's wife is, instead, a work of historical fiction based on the life of one amazing woman. I could not put this book down and finished it in probably three days. The use of detail that Ms. Hambly uses in her writing is superb; the reader really feels like they are living through all of the horrific experiences that Mary Lincoln had to face. I would recommend this novel to anyone who loves historical fiction or who just would love to read an outstanding book. Before reading, I knew nothing of Mary Lincoln or of President Lincoln, however, this book has sparked my interest in looking for more information on this woman's life and the trials she faced. Mary Lincoln's strength and pure feminine nature shines throughout this book---awesome read!