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In reply to the discussion: 154 Years Ago Today; "You sockdologizing old man-trap!" [View all]PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,950 posts)I highly recommend the book Henry and Clara by Thomas Mallon.
Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris were not merely affianced. They'd grown up as step brother and step sister when his father and her mother died, and the surviving parents married. In time, Henry and Clara fell in love and wanted to marry, but faced huge obstacles, mainly of public opinion. As the article mentions, Henry and Clara were there because other preferred guests had turned down the invitation.
For years after, Henry would be confronted by journalists on the anniversary of the assassination asking him what it felt like not to have saved Lincoln's life. Journalism has been the same for well over 150 years.
Read the book Henry and Clara by Thomas Mallon. I happened upon it perhaps 15 years ago. Like everyone, I was familiar with the various engravings showing Booth shooting Lincoln, and the other couple in the box at Ford's Theater. I'd never thought much about them. Then I read the book.
It's essentially a fictionalized biography of Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris. It takes the reader through their lives, through the assassination, to their marriage, and to the end of their lives. Pretty much every single year after that fatal date in 1965 reporters would catch up with Henry Rathbone and ask him, "How does it feel to be the man who didn't save President Lincoln?"
I read the final 20 or so pages of that novel with my mouth dropped open in astonishment. You learn what ultimately happened to Henry and Clara, and it's astonishing.
Thomas Mallon is an amazing writer. I haven't read all of his books, but every single one I've read is incredible. Some more so than others. Henry and Clara is simply the best of a wonderful lot.