Blending fact with fiction, Mallon vividly re-creates the tragic story of Henry and Clara Rathbone--the young couple who sat in the President's box on the night of Lincoln's assassination. Witnessing the event that shook the entire nation changed their lives forever, leading to guilt, madness, and eventually murder. A moving and astonishing story based on a little known tale.
On the evening of Good Friday, 1865, Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris joined the Lincolns in the Presidential box at Ford's Theater, becoming eyewitnesses to one of the great tragedies of American history.

In this riveting novel, Thomas Mallon re-creates the unusual love story of this young engaged couple whose fateful encounter with history profoundly affects the remainder of their lives. Lincoln's assassination is only one part of the remarkable life they share, a dramatic tale of passion, scandal, heroism, murder, and madness, all based on Mallon's deep research into the fascinating history of the Rathbone and Harris families. Henry and Clara not only tells the astonishing story of its title figures; it also illuminates the culture of nineteenth-century Victorian America: a rigid society barely concealing the suppressed impulses and undercurrents that only grew stronger as the century progressed.