T
he Toy Shop, a Romantic Story of Lincoln the Man by Margarita Spalding Gerry is a romantic novel written by Spalding Gerry the year her husband, Perry died. Margarita went on to write eight more novels during her lifetime in Washington DC. Margarita Spalding taught high school for several years before she was married. In 1916, Gerry was appointed to the Board of Education in Washington D.C., and reappointed in 1919. As a self-described progressive member of the board, she testified before a Senate committee in 1920 about a teacher accused of "bolshevism". She resigned from the board in 1921.
Her husband's death prompt her to find a way to support herself and her children. She was quoted as saying, "I started to write stories because I realized that they were marketable products for which I could receive money", she explained to an interviewer in 1917.
The Toy Shop, being a romantic story and her first book, it was said that there was some of her love for her deceased husband in her writing style. The book itself was popular at the time though the actual number of copies printed and sold is lost to history. Never the less, her romantic story about Lincoln managed to convince her that her writing skills were good enough to build a career as a writer.