Right Or Wrong, God Judge Me: The Writings of John Wilkes Booth

John Wilkes Booth

University of Illinois Press, Nov 1, 2000 - Biography & Autobiography - 200 pages

All of the known writings of John Wilkes Booth are included in this collection. Of this wealth of material, the most important item is a previously unpublished twenty-page manuscript discovered at the Players Club in Manhattan. Written by Booth in 1860 in a form similar to Mark Antony's funeral oration in Julius Caesar, it makes clear that his hatred for Lincoln was formed early and was deeply rooted in his pro-slavery and pro-Southern ideology. Also included in the nearly seventy documents are six love letters to a seventeen-year-old Boston girl, Isabel Sumner, written during the summer of 1864, when Booth was conspiring against Lincoln; several explicit statements of Booth's political convictions; and the diary he kept during his futile twelve-day flight after the assassination. The documents show that Booth, although opinionated and impulsive, was not an isolated madman. Rather, he was a highly successful actor and ladies' man who also was a Confederate agent. Along with many others, he believed that Lincoln was a tyrant whose policies threatened civil liberties. --From publisher's description.

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Review: Right or Wrong, God Judge Me: THE WRITINGS OF JOHN WILKES BOOTH

User Review  - Liz Donatelli - Goodreads

John Wilkes Booth's diary entries before and (a few) after Lincoln's assassination. Fascinating!

Contents

• Introduction: 1
• Editorial Method: 23
• Summary List of John Wilkes Booth Documents: 25
• THE WRITINGS OF JOHN WILKES BOOTH: 35
• Bibliography: 161
• Index: 169

About the author

John Rhodehamel is the Norris Foundation Curator of American Historical Manuscripts at the Huntington Library.
Thomas F. Schwartz is curator of the Lincoln collection at the Illinois State Historical Library in Springfield.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Right Or Wrong, God Judge Me: The Writings of John Wilkes Booth
• Author: John Wilkes Booth
• Editors: John H. Rhodehamel, Louise Taper
• Edition: illustrated, reprint, annotated
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 2000
• ISBN: 0252069676, 9780252069673
• Length: 200 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / General; History / United States / Civil War Period (1850-1877); Social Science / Criminology