“I have often been asked to write my life, as those who know me know that it has been an eventful one,” Elizabeth wrote. “At last I have acceded to the importunities of my friends, and have hastily sketched some of the striking incidents that go to make up my history. My life, so full of romance, may sound like a dream to the matter-of-fact reader, nevertheless everything I have written is strictly true; much has been omitted, but nothing has been exaggerated.”
Elizabeth paused. A sudden vision filled her mind’s eye—Mrs. Lincoln picking up her book, examining the cover, and turning the pages, her frown deepening with every paragraph. Elizabeth drew in a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and refreshed her pen in the ink. “In writing as I have done, I am well aware that I have invited criticism.” Elizabeth figured she could probably compose an accurate list of those who would be first and loudest to complain. “But before the critic judges harshly, let my explanation be carefully read and weighed.”
The critic might refuse, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask.
Elizabeth next ruminated briefly on slavery, a topic she would return to in a more personal, revelatory way early in her memoir. Then her thoughts again turned to Mrs. Lincoln. “It may be charged that I have written too freely on some questions, especially in regard to Mrs. Lincoln,” she acknowledged. “I do not think so; at least, I have been prompted by the purest motive. Mrs. Lincoln, by her own acts, forced herself into notoriety. She stepped beyond the formal lines which hedge about a private life, and invited public criticism.”
But was that fair? The nagging question brought Elizabeth’s pen to a halt. Mrs. Lincoln had not run for office and had not been elected First Lady; the role had been bestowed upon her by virtue of her husband’s choices and actions. It was, admittedly, a role she had relished, a title she had desired since childhood. She had reveled in the attention, so long as it was favorable, and she had certainly enjoyed the benefits and privileges of being, as she had sometimes called herself, Mrs. President. So yes, Elizabeth decided, it was fair to say that Mrs. Lincoln had chosen a public life.
Even so, the people had judged her too harshly. “The people knew nothing of the secret history of her transactions, therefore they judged her by what was thrown to the surface.” Indignantly, Elizabeth rebuked a few prominent personages who had been especially unkind and certain newspapers who had taken excessive glee in exposing Mrs. Lincoln’s faults, but then she thought better of it and scratched out the lines. “Mrs. Lincoln may have been imprudent, but since her intentions were good, she should be judged more kindly than she has been.”
If she could persuade her hypothetical readers of nothing else, Elizabeth hoped she would convince them of this. Suddenly she wondered if Mr. Herndon had entertained similar thoughts as he composed his lectures.
Her spirits dipped, but she firmly reminded herself her book and Mr. Herndon’s scribblings had nothing in common except for purporting to be about Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln. Their motives—and their degree of truthfulness—could not be more dissimilar.
And yet worry nagged at her. Would Mrs. Lincoln agree?
“If I have betrayed confidence in anything I have published, it has been to place Mrs. Lincoln in a better light before the world,” Elizabeth wrote, her hand firm and steady around the pen. “A breach of trust—if breach it can be called—of this kind is always excusable.” She took a deep breath and steeled herself; the next admission would not be easy. “My own character, as well as the character of Mrs. Lincoln, is at stake, since I have been intimately associated with that lady in the most eventful periods of her life. I have been her confidante, and if evil charges are laid at her door, they also must be laid at mine, since I have been a party to all her movements.”
To defend herself, she had to defend the lady she served, and as Elizabeth wrote the words, she realized this truth had compelled her throughout the entire writing of her memoir. She had long been admired for her integrity and dignity, but the unfortunate business at 609 Broadway had tainted her sterling reputation with scandal. She had to redeem herself, and she could not do that without redeeming Mrs. Lincoln.
Elizabeth finished the preface, hoping she had written everything Mr. Redpath wanted her to write, that she had said everything she needed to say. Readers might disregard her lengthy explanation and decide for themselves that her motives were not pure, but she knew the truth. She also knew that nothing within the pages of her book could cause Mrs. Lincoln to be regarded in a worse light than that in which she presently stood, so the secrets Elizabeth revealed could do Mrs. Lincoln no harm.
“I am not the special champion of the widow of our lamented President,” Elizabeth emphasized. Mistrustful readers would say that she could not be honest about the former First Lady’s faults, since they were friends. She must make them believe otherwise. “I wish the world to judge her as she is, free from the exaggerations of praise or scandal. The reader of the pages which follow will discover that I have written with the utmost frankness in regard to her—have exposed her faults as well as given her credit for honest motives.”
Had she inadvertently weighted the scales too much in one direction or the other? The question had plagued her with every word she had written. She had tried her best to be fair, and Mr. Redpath assured her she had been. She hoped the world would agree.
She especially hoped Mrs. Lincoln would agree.
On April 1, Mr. Redpath brought her a copy of the American Literary Gazette and Publishers’ Circular, opened it to a page he had marked, and twice tapped an advertisement at the top of the left column. “Mr. Carleton and I and everyone at our publishing house are tremendously proud to have you as one of our authors,” he said. “We have great expectations for the success of your book.”
Elizabeth glanced away from the page to thank him, but she immediately turned back to it and began to read:
G. W. CARLETON & CO.
Will publish early in April
A REMARKABLE BOOK ENTITLED
BEHIND THE SCENES
By Mrs. Elizabeth Keckley, for thirty years a household slave in the best Southern families, and since she purchased her freedom, and during the plotting of the rebellion, a confidential servant of Mrs. Jefferson Davis, where, “Behind the Scenes,” she heard the first breathing of that monster, SECESSION. Since the commencement of the rebellion, and up to date, she has been Mrs. Abraham Lincoln’smodiste (dressmaker), confidante, and business woman generally: a great portion of her time having been spent in the White House in the president’s own family. Being thus intimate with Mrs. Lincoln and her whole family, as well as with many of the distinguished members of Washington society, she has much to say of an interesting nature in regard to men and things in the White House, Congress, Washington, and New York. She discloses the whole history of Mrs. Lincoln’s unfortunate attempt to dispose of her wardrobe, etc., which when read will remove many erroneous impressions in the public mind, and place Mrs. L. in a more favorable light.
The book is crowded with incidents of a most romantic as well as tragic interest, covering a period of forty years. It is powerfully and truthfully written, and cannot fail to create a wide-world interest, not alone in the book, but in its gifted and conscientious author. It is perfectly authentic. One vol. 12 mo. 400 pp. Cloth. Illustrated with portrait of the author. Price $2.
“What do you say to that?” said Mr. Redpath, smiling.
“I say it is quite wonderful,” said Elizabeth, with a warm but tremulous laugh. Although she had been working on her memoir for months, somehow the advertisement made it seem real, immediate, tangible. Hesitantly, she asked, “It says that I was thirty years a slave, but I was actually a slave for thirty-seven years, almost thirty-eight.”
“An insignificant difference,” Mr. Redpath assured her. “Thirty is a nice round number. Although you are right to say that it is not entirely accurate, it sounds better in the advertisement.”
“Of course,” Elizabeth said, regretting her criticism. “Thank you for your kind words about m
e and my book. You make it sound so intriguing that if I had not written it, I would be first in line to buy it.”
Mr. Redpath smiled. “You deserve abundant praise. The book is remarkable, and its author even more so.” To Elizabeth’s surprise, he took her hand and raised it to his lips. “It has been an honor working with you, Mrs. Keckley. The privilege would not have been greater if I had worked with the First Lady herself.”
“Don’t ever tell her that,” Elizabeth quickly warned him, without thinking. Laughing, Mr. Redpath assured her he would not.
A few days later, Mr. Redpath called on her again and placed her finished book in her hands. For a long moment she held it, unmoving, disbelieving. “Learn your book,” her father had urged her in his letters. How proud he would be to know that she had become an author.
Elizabeth’s hands trembled, and as Mr. Redpath looked on smiling, she opened the red clothbound cover and turned the first few blank pages. She paused at the engraved portrait of the author—she didn’t think it was a very flattering likeness, but never mind. Next she came to the title page:
BEHIND THE SCENES.
by
Elizabeth Keckley,
FORMERLY A SLAVE, BUT MORE RECENTLY MODISTE,
AND FRIEND TO MRS. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
OR,
THIRTY YEARS A SLAVE, AND FOUR YEARS IN THE WHITE HOUSE.
So Carleton & Company had not corrected the number of years she had been a slave. Well, she supposed, what harm would it do to have people think she was a few years younger?
“How does it feel to see your words in print for the first time?” asked Mr. Redpath.
“It feels wonderful,” Elizabeth said. Her heart was pounding so quickly that she had to take a deep breath to quiet it. She turned to her preface and read again the familiar words that until then she had seen only in her own imperfect handwriting. Then an unfamiliar turn of phrase caught her eye, and another. Her brief musings on slavery had been embellished greatly. The sense of her original words was still evident, but it had been cloaked in more ornate prose than she liked. Feeling Mr. Redpath’s eyes upon her, she was careful not to allow her expression to betray her surprise and disappointment. Everyone knew that editors changed an author’s words, she chided herself. An author of a first book should expect even more assistance, especially from such an experienced editor.
She paged through the book carefully, her joy soon returning when she discovered that the rest of the memoir had not been altered as drastically. Then she reached the end of her tale, and discovered an unexpected appendix.
Joy turned to shock when she discovered the letters from Mrs. Lincoln she had lent to Mr. Redpath to assist him in editing her manuscript. They had been reproduced almost exactly as Elizabeth remembered, with only a few inconsequential phrases omitted. Ironically, Mrs. Lincoln’s warning that her confidences were meant to be “BETWEEN OURSELVES” had been preserved, including the emphatic capitalization.
She felt as if all the air had been squeezed from her lungs. “Mr. Redpath,” she managed to say in a strangled voice. “Mrs. Lincoln’s private letters—”
“Yes. We thought they contributed to the authenticity of your work.”
“But I let you borrow them only to assist you in your editing,” protested Elizabeth, distressed. “You agreed not to publish them.”
Mr. Redpath’s brow furrowed. “No, Mrs. Keckley, no,” he said, shaking his head. “We agreed that I would not publish anything from the letters that would embarrass Mrs. Lincoln.”
She held out the book to him and quickly paged through the appendix. “I assure you, this will embarrass her!”
“I disagree,” he replied. “The letters reveal her thinking, the motives behind her actions. You always said that if people understood her good intentions, they would be more forgiving of her…outbursts and mishaps, as it were. I fail to see how that should embarrass her.”
He failed to see because he did not want to see. Sick at heart, Elizabeth sank into a chair, the book on her lap. Mrs. Lincoln would view the publication of her private correspondence as the worst sort of betrayal. She would never forgive her.
“Mrs. Keckley, please do not distress yourself.” Mr. Redpath either truly was utterly bewildered by her reaction or he was a shrewd actor. “These letters—in fact, your entire memoir—will serve their purpose. They will inspire Mrs. Lincoln’s critics to abandon their misconceptions and rally to her side. Mark my words.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded, hoping he was right. There was no point in arguing with him. What was done was done. She could not go from bookstore to newsstand tearing the appendix from every copy of Behind the Scenes.
And, as it happened, Mr. Redpath’s prediction proved true to some extent, but not as he had expected.
On April 12, a woman for whom she did some sewing, a native of Boston, greeted her with the cryptic remark “I’m glad to see you doing so well. You should not give a care for what they say in Springfield.”
Elizabeth’s heart thudded, and her thoughts flew to Mrs. Lincoln. “What do they say in Springfield?”
Her patron’s quick, guarded expression revealed that she assumed Elizabeth already knew. She didn’t want to explain, but after some coaxing, she reluctantly told Elizabeth that a brief item about her forthcoming book had appeared in the Springfield Daily Republican. Although Elizabeth was relieved to learn that her patron referred to Springfield, Massachusetts, rather than the former hometown of the Lincoln family, she still needed to steel herself before asking her patron to bring her the clipping.
The headline read “Kitchen and Bed-Chamber Literature,” and the review—if it was right to call it a review, before the book was published—was worse than Elizabeth could have imagined.
A disreputable New York publishing house announced a book to be entitled Behind the Scenes, by Mrs. Elizabeth Keckley, who professes to have been Mrs. Jeff Davis’s confidential servant while the rebellion was being cooked, and Mrs. Abraham Lincoln’s dressmaker while the rebellion was going on. Such a book may be written in good taste, be interesting, be instructive, be decorous; but the chances are as the Bank of England to a filbert, that it is a sensational enterprise of the worst sort, after the order of Gen. Baker’s “Secret Service,” unprincipled, false, scandalous, indecent. The very idea of domestic servants being persuaded to write books about the secrets of their employers, being crammed by literary adventurers with what they ought to say, and their lumbering and halting narration being helped at every stage by perhaps the very class of men who edit the flash papers of our cities, must be repulsive to every person of an ordinary degree of refinement. We hope it will prove to be a good book. We greatly fear it will be an exceedingly bad one.
At first Elizabeth was too flabbergasted to speak. “Should they not first read my book before they condemn it?” she eventually managed to say. “Indecent? My memoir? I was told what to write by ‘literary adventurers’? How could they possibly believe such terrible things?”
“I’m so very sorry,” her patron said, thoroughly miserable. “I wish I had never mentioned it.”
“You’re not to blame.” Elizabeth blinked back angry tears and fought to maintain her composure. “You are only the bearer of bad news. You didn’t write these cruel things.”
“Those newspapermen will eat their words after they read your book,” her patron said comfortingly. “I for one am no less interested in reading your memoir now than I was before they attempted to discourage me.”
Elizabeth managed a wry smile. “Perhaps, but you know me.”
“Think of it, though,” her patron mused. “The Republican might have done you a favor.”
“In what way? I don’t see how.”
“They have made the people curious about your story. Everyone will want to buy your book now. They will read it and make up their own minds. You shall see.”
Elizabeth hoped she was right, but an ominous cloud seemed to blot out the sun, casting shadows upon what she
had expected to be a bright and happy day.
Undeterred by the newspaper’s grim predictions, her New York friends were immensely proud of her and excited about her book, and her landlady threw a party for her on the first day of its release. Emma, the Lewises, and other friends sent congratulatory telegrams from Washington City. Their enthusiasm lifted Elizabeth’s spirits somewhat, but Mrs. Lincoln had not responded to her letter confessing the matter of their private correspondence made public, and silence from such a prolific letter writer made Elizabeth uneasy.
On April 15, a new advertisement appeared in the American Literary Gazette and Publishers’ Circular, but with a dramatic new headline that described her memoir as “A Literary Thunderbolt.” Most of the book description remained the same, although what Elizabeth had to say “in regard to men and things in the White House” was no longer described as merely “interesting,” but now also “startling.”
“Oh, no, no, no,” Elizabeth murmured, setting the paper aside. Her insightful, poignant memoir had been transformed into a spectacle.
Behind the Scenes outraged the press, who were swift, scathing, and merciless in their response.
The New York Citizen: “Has the American public no word of protest against the assumption that its literary taste is of so low grade as to tolerate the back-stairs gossip of Negro servant girls?”
The Washington National Intelligencer: “Where will it end? What family that has a servant may not, in fact, have its peace and happiness destroyed by such treacherous creatures as the Keckley woman?”
The New York Times, after offering three columns of excerpts and noting that Mrs. Lincoln was in financial distress: “Mrs. Keckley, we also learn, is likewise in trouble. Mrs. Lincoln is unable to pay her, and she supports herself by taking in sewing—and by writing a book. She would much better have stuck to her needle. We cannot but look upon many of the disclosures made in this volume as gross violations of confidence. Mrs. Lincoln evidently reposed implicit trust in her, and this trust, under unwise advice no doubt, she has betrayed. But only in a restricted sense can the book be called her own. It is easy to trace, all through its pages, the hand of a practiced writer—of one who has prejudices to gratify and grudges to repay. As mere gossip, the book is mainly a failure. Mrs. Keckley really knew very little about life in the White House, and she ekes out her scant stock of story and anecdote with extracts from newspapers, moral reflections and other expedients of like character. The public will be disappointed when they come to read her book. They will find it less piquant, less scandalous, than was expected, considering its source, while as a literary work it can lay claim to very little merit indeed.”
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