Mary Todd Lincoln: Her Life and Letters

It is our belief that the most balanced view of Mary Lincoln - one that offers neither condemnation nor apology - can be obtained from reading her letters. More than 600 of them survive, nearly all revealing and, in their cumulative effect, shattering. To us, the chief interest of Mary Lincoln's letters lies in their self-portrait of a woman who had the intelligence, energy, and compassion to have been ranked among the outstanding first ladies of the land, an anomaly in her era, but who came to the White House at the most tragic hour in a nation's history and was destroyed by the experience. (from edditor's note)