A Diplomat's Wife in Mexico

Edith O'Shaughnessy's letters offer a front-row view of Mexico in one of its most volatile and tragic hours. As the wife of an American diplomat in Mexico City, she records revolution, military action, shifting alliances, and the uneasy rituals of diplomacy with the immediacy of a daily diary, while also conveying her deep personal affection for a country in anguish. The story opens in Vera Cruz amid heat, harbor traffic, naval presence, and the strain of travel, then moves to Mexico City, where embassy life, social calls, and improvised domestic comforts unfold beside coups, arrests, street patrols, and collapsing order. Across receptions, bridge games, official visits, and anxious conversations with foreign representatives, O'Shaughnessy captures the human cost of Huerta's regime and the widening crisis involving Villa, Carranza, and Washington. She writes with wit, sharp observation, and lyrical admiration for Mexico's beauty, even as danger grows, from threats against foreigners to armed journeys through rebel country. The result is a vivid diplomatic chronicle of a nation on the brink of war. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.