The assassination of Abraham Lincoln did not come without warning: it had been foretold. Alford focuses on the president's fascination with Spiritualism, and demonstrates how it linked him, uncannily, to the man who would kill him. Lincoln was deeply superstitious and drawn to the irrational. After repeated personal tragedies, the Lincolns turned for solace to Spiritualism, that held that the dead were nearby and could be contacted by the living. The Lincolns and the Booths even used the same mediums. Alford follows the two families across the nineteenth century, and leads us to consider how ghost stories helped shape the nation. -- adapted from publisher info