AMERICAN QUEEN: The Rise and Fall of Kate Chase Sprague -- Civil War "Belle of the North" and Gilded Age Woman of Scandal,

New York:: Da Capo Press/ Perseus, , 2014.. First edition -. Very good in illustrated wrappers (crease to lower corner of front cover). Advance Reading Copy (trade paperback format. ) A "meticulously researched biography, drawing on much unpublished material, of a woman who was a century ahead of her time. As the "daughter of Salmon P. Chase, Lincoln's treasury secretary, Kate Chase enjoyed unprecedented political power for a woman. As her widowed father's hostess, she set up a 'rival court' against Mary Lincoln in hopes of making her father president and herself his First Lady. To facilitate that goal, she married one of the richest men in the country, the handsome governor of Rhode Island, in the social event of the Civil War. . . But when William Sprague turned out to be less of a prince as a husband, Kate found comfort in the arms of a powerful married senator. The ensuing sex scandal ended her virtual royalty; after the marriage crumbled and the money disappeared, she was left only with her children and her ever-proud bearing. She became a social outcast and died in poverty, yet in her final years she would find both greater authenticity and the inner peace that had always eluded her." Frontispiece, extensive notes, selected bibliography. xxiii, 363 pp.