author
L. A. Abbott
b. 1813
A 19th-century American memoirist best known for turning a chaotic personal life into a startlingly candid book. His surviving work reads like a mix of confession, scandal, and dark comedy.
1 Audiobook
About the author
L. A. Abbott was an American author born in 1813. The clearest biographical detail available comes from his own book, Seven Wives and Seven Prisons; Or, Experiences in the Life of a Matrimonial Maniac. A True Story, first published in 1870.
In that memoir, he says he was born in Chatham, Columbia County, New York, in September 1813. Modern cataloging sources and public-domain library records consistently connect his name with that single autobiographical work, and some list him as active around 1870.
Little else about his life has been firmly documented in the sources I could confirm, including his full name and death date. That uncertainty gives his book an extra layer of mystery: Abbott remains known less as a fully mapped historical figure than as the memorable, troublesome voice behind one unusually frank nineteenth-century life story.