| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.2

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

C. A. Tripp. The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Free Press. 2005. Pp. xxxvi, 343. $27.00.
This book is a work of desire, the desire of the late Kinsey Institute author C. A. Tripp to prove that the sixteenth president was primarily homosexual, or a "2" on a scale of 1 (exclusively homosexual) to 6 (exclusively heterosexual). Less a biography than a psychosexual analysis of Abraham Lincoln's correspondence with his putative paramours, Tripp seeks to demonstrate that Lincoln, in effect, led a secret homosexual life in a period before homosexuality was a recognized sexual orientation.	1
After a brief review of Lincoln's adolescence and speculation about his adolescent masturbatory experiences and sexual outlets, Tripp turns his analysis to the president's relationships with Ann Rutledge, Mary Owens, and Mary Todd, all three of whom apparently provided cover for his true love interests, David Derickson, Elmer Ellsworth, and especially Joshua Speed. To support this contention, Tripp cites Lincoln's off-color humor; his alleged homoerotic poem, the "First Chronicles of Ruben"; his emotional distance from the women in his life; and the alleged sexual unions with both Derickson and Speed, as well as the president's amorous, if unrequited, pursuit of Ellsworth. Tripp relies on the Lincoln-Speed correspondence to bolster his case, and indeed, by his reading of this interesting collection, there is no doubt as to Lincoln's preference, deserving 2 rather than a 1 only because Lincoln married Mary Todd.	. . .

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