"Constructing a thrilling, tightly contained narrative around a trove of previously undisclosed documents, medical diagnoses, White House memoranda, and internal documents, journalist and historian Phyllis Lee Levin sheds new light on the central role of Edith Bolling Galt in Woodrow Wilson's administration." "Shortly after Ellen Wilson's death on the eve of World War I in 1914, President Wilson was swept off his feet by Edith Bolling Galt. They were married in December 1915, and, Levin shows, Edith Wilson set out immediately to consolidate her influence on him and tried to destroy his relationships with Colonel House, his closest friend and adviser, and with Joe Tumulty, his longtime secretary. Wilson resisted these efforts, but Edith was persistent and eventually succeeded."--BOOK JACKET.

"A Lisa Drew book."

A First Marriage, a Widower, a Romance -- "A great capacity for loving the gentle sex" -- "Among the foremost thinkers of his age" -- "Turn a corner and meet your fate" -- "Anyone can do anything they try to" -- "A new world" for Edith Galt -- "There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight" -- The president's most trusted adviser, Colonel House -- "Fit for counsel as any man" -- "The awful earthquake" -- Mary Peck, the dear friend he found in Bermuda -- A wedding on December 18, 1915 -- President and Mrs. Edith Bolling Wilson, Wartime -- "The world is on fire" -- "A peace without victory" -- "Nothing less than war" -- Fourteen Points -- "She knows what her husband knows" -- Paris and Round-Trips on the SS Washington -- "Such a Cinderella role" -- "Is it a League of Nations or a League of notions?" -- Paris to Washington, and back ... -- The preacher and the Brahmin -- A different president ... a different Paris -- Wilson suffers a "flareback" -- A Congress "frothing at the mouth" -- Wilson's greatest publicity campaign -- Illness -- "The beginning of the deception of the American people" -- "The President says" -- Lodge's olive branch -- The "Smelling Committee" pays a visit -- The White House snubs the British ambassador -- "Wilson's last mad act" -- Edith Wilson as "foremost statesman" -- Wilson for a third term -- "Pecuniary anxieties" -- Retirement -- Wilson & Colby -- Wilson & Colby folds -- "To my incomparable wife" -- Edith Wilson on her own, 1924-61.