Review: Abel, John Wilkes Booth and the Women Who Loved Him

[truepenny]

John Wilkes Booth and the Women Who Loved Him by E. Lawrence Abel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is an interesting book with a terrible title.

It's half a biography of John Wilkes Booth and half biographies of the women who were involved with him: prostitutes, actresses, and a senator's daughter. It is not particularly academic in tone, although he's clearly done his research, especially in finding out what happened to all these women after Booth died, and it is neither feminist nor misogynistic (aside from some fat-shaming that should have been excised). He also argues that Booth had syphilis and that the mental effects of tertiary syphilis go a fair ways toward explaining why Booth assassinated President Lincoln. I don't know that I entirely believe him on that last part, but certainly his evidence that Booth had syphilis is convincing.

Worth checking out if you are interested either in Booth/the Lincoln assassination or in American theater of the second half of the nineteenth century.

Three and a half stars, round up to four.



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