A new volume of the Collected Letters of Mary Todd Lincoln is currently underway under the auspices of the Lincoln Studies Center of the University of Illinois, to be published by the University of Illinois Press. The new work will replace the previous collection of Mrs. Lincoln’s letters, the 1972 book, Mary Todd Lincoln: Her Life and Letters, by Justin and Linda Levitt Turner, and will add more than 300 new letters to the collection as well as correct errors in more than 150 previously published letters. The volume will also include an appendix of the “Recollected Words of Mary Lincoln” gathered only from immediate primary sources. Editor and ADE member Jason Emerson has published eight previous books, including editing a collection of all documents relating to Mary Lincoln’s insanity case (Mary Lincoln’s Insanity Case: A Documentary History, University of Illinois Press, 2012), a collection of poetry by, for, and about Mary Lincoln (Lincoln’s Lover: Mary Lincoln and Poetry, Kent State University Press, 2018), an unpublished manuscript about Mary Lincoln written using previously unknown letters (The Dark Days of Abraham Lincoln’s Widow, As Revealed by Her Own Letters, Southern Illinois University Press, 2011), and an analytical bibliography of all known writings about Mary Lincoln (Mary Lincoln for the Ages, Southern Illinois University Press, 2019).
The Collected Letters of Mary Todd Lincoln will be completed by the end of this year, with expected publication in late 2027/early 2028.
