Love is Eternal Author:Irving Stone This book was published in 1954, and is a biographical novel. The master of the biographical novel has written the story of the marriage of Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln. Love is Eternal was the inscription Abraham Lincoln had engraved in the wedding ring he bought before picking of the preacher and taking him to Mary Todd's house to perfor... more »m their wedding ceremony. For Mary and Abraham love did indeed prove eternal, though as Mary observed, "One has to enddure a long time to find it out." For 90 years historians have attempted to prove that Lincoln never loved Mary Todd, that he married her out of duty and confusion, that she was a trial and a cross he had to bear. Mary Todd was a beautiful and high-spirited girl with a witty tongue, one of the best-educated women of her time. She came from a wealthy and socially prominent Kentucky family; she had a great love for elegant clothes and jewelry and beautiful houses. Also bred into her by her father was a passion for politics....Love is Eternal tells Mary's story for the first time from inside her own heart....Love is Eternal tells the full, the exciting, the humorous and joyous, the dramatic and sometimes tragic truth about Mary and Abraham Lincoln. It is one of the most tumultuous marriages and compelling love stories ever livend in America. William Stoddard, Secretary to Abraham and Mary Lincoln wrote, "Mrs. Lincoln came to Washington with a distinct understanding of her social duties and with an energetic purpose to perform them. Of a good Kentucky family and of very fair education, she had been early noted for the keenness of her wit. That she should make a success here under the focalized bitterness of all possible adverse criticisms was simply out of the question; but she has done vastly better than her ill-natured critics are at all willing to admit. They are a jury empaneled to convict on every count of every indictment which any slanderous tongue may bring against her, and they have already succeeded in so poisoning the popular mind that it will never be able to judge her fairly." (The dust cover is well-worn, but the book remains in excellent condition.)« less