The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln
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For four years in the 1830s, in Springfield, Illinois, a young state legislator shared a bed with his best friend, Joshua Speed. The legislator was Abraham Lincoln. When Speed moved home to Kentucky in 1841 and Lincoln's engagement to Mary Todd was broken off, Lincoln suffered an emotional crisis.An underground campaign has been accumulating about Abahram Lincoln for years, focusing on his intimate relationships. He was famously awkward around single women. Before Mary Todd, he was engaged to another woman, but his fiancée called off the marriage on the grounds that he was “lacking smaller attentions.” His marriage to Mary was troubled. Meanwhile, throughout his adult life, he enjoyed close relationships with a number of men — disclosed here for the first time, including an affair with an army captain when Mrs. Lincoln was away.This extensive study by renowned psychologist, therapist, and sex researcher C.A. Tripp, examines not only Lincoln's sexuality, but aims to make sense of the whole man. It includes an introduction by Jean Baker, biographer of Mary Todd Lincoln and an afterword containing reactions by two Lincoln scholars and one clinical psychologist. This timely book finally allows the true Lincoln to be fully understood. Publishers Weekly Psychologist, therapist and former Kinsey sex researcher Tripp-author of the 1975 classic The Homosexual Matrix-died in May 2003 at the age of 83, just after completing this riveting new study that makes a surprisingly compelling case for Lincoln's bisexuality. Tripp merges a sexual psychologist's knowledge with a prosecutor's eye for evidence as he scrutinizes letters, diaries and oral histories gathered by early Lincoln researchers. Seeing what others either could not or would not, Tripp itemizes in telling detail three homosexual liaisons from different stages of Lincoln's life. The first involved young Billy Green, a frequent bunk mate in New Salem during the 1830s. The second was a passionate union with the aristocratic Kentuckian, and Lincoln's lifelong friend, Joshua Speed in Springfield, Ill., during the 1840s (Tripp notes, refuting others' arguments, that poverty did not necessitate their long-term sharing of a bed). The last involved Capt. David V. Derickson, President Lincoln's bodyguard and intimate companion between September 1862 and April 1863; it is documented that the president shared his bed with him on numerous occasions during Mary Lincoln's frequent absences. Throughout the book, the most important factor is Tripp's knowledgeable sex therapist's eye running over key sources to detect telltale markers missed by previous writers who lacked Tripp's training. An Introduction by Jean Baker (biographer of Mary Todd Lincoln) and concluding comments from Lincoln scholar Michael Chesson help put Tripp's groundbreaking-and sure to be controversial-study into historical context. BOMC, InsightOut Book Club alternates. (Jan. 11) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
