James L. Swanson

 

James L. Swanson is the author of Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer and Chasing King's Killer: The Hunt for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Assassin.

The title page of one of the Folger’s First Folios.

How the Soon-to-Reopen Folger Shakespeare Library Came to Be

A full 82 copies of Shakespeare’s First Folio will go on view as the renovated Washington, D.C. institution makes its debut

Merrill Joshua, of St. Helena’s tourism board, dressed in full Napoleonic regalia to depict the island’s most famous resident.

A Journey to St. Helena, Home of Napoleon's Last Days

We crossed the globe to the tiny, remote island to sample the splendid desolation of the emperor's exile under a scornful British governor

"One more stain on the old banner," Booth yelled, conjuring the Confederate flag as he prepared to face his pursuers

The Final Hours of John Wilkes Booth

"I have too great a soul to die like a criminal," Booth once wrote

The weapon that shot Abraham Lincoln

The Blood Relics From the Lincoln Assassination

Even now, 150 years later, objects from the murder of the president provide a powerful link to the event

The JFK Christmas Card That Was Never Sent

A rare White House card from 1963 evokes one of the nation’s darkest holiday seasons

After the shooting at Ford's Theatre, sentiments ran high, both for the slain president and against the actor who had killed him (on whose likeness a War Department telegraph operator wrote out his thoughts).

An Assassin's Final Hours

John Wilkes Booth, cornered in a Virginia barn, wanted to go down fighting: "I have too great a soul to die like a criminal"

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