As of 14 November 2011, Killing Lincoln was among Amazon's best sellers and at number two on the New York Times list of best-selling non-fiction. It also held the number one spot on the New York Times E-Book Nonfiction list for multiple weeks. In late October 2011, the publisher, Henry Holt and Co., stated that Killing Lincoln had sold nearly a million copies. On the November 14, 2011 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, O'Reilly told his television audience that "there are now more than 1 million copies of Killing Lincoln in print, and the book continues to sell briskly." By December 2012, the New York Times reported the book had been on their best-seller list for more than 65 weeks.
Criticism
During the book's initial release, Rae Emerson, the deputy superintendent of Ford's Theatre National Historic Site, conducted a review of the book's text and discovered a number of inaccuracies, which she described as "factual errors" and listed as numbering ten, each different and one additionally occurring multiple times. As a result of the review, the National Park Service, which manages Ford's Theatre, made the decision not to allow the edition of the book containing the errors to be sold at the Eastern National Bookstore located in the Museum at Ford's Theatre National Historic Site, although it is sold in a gift shop in the lobby that is operated independently by the Ford's Theatre Society. Historian Edward Steers has also criticized the book in a review for various inaccuracies and for lending support to conspiracy theories. In response to Emerson's review, O'Reilly said that the mistakes, which he numbered less than her findings at just "four minor misstatements" and "two typeset errors" and had been corrected in subsequent printings. O'Reilly called the controversy "a concerted effort by people who don’t like me to diminish the book," said that Killing Lincoln was "honest," and wished all students would read it.
English-language, first-edition hardcover print copies containing errata material can be identified as such if they contain the following:
Page 3: The man with six weeks to live is anxious. He furls his brow, as he does countless times each day...
Page 83: Grant and Lee rise simultaneously and shake hands. The two warriors will never meet again.
Page 104: Not the least bit discouraged, Booth walks up to Ford's Theatre on Tenth Street. After it was burned to the ground in 1863, owner John Ford rebuilt it....
Page 131: That afternoon, Grant meets with Lincoln in the Oval Office.
Page 146: By nine A.M., President Lincoln is sitting at his desk in the Oval Office.
Page 154: Now, between Oval Office appointments, Lincoln summons a messenger.
Page 160: The state box, where the Lincolns and Grants will sit this evening, is almost on the stage itself--so close that if Lincoln were to impulsively rise from his rocking chair and leap into the actors' midst, the distance traveled would be a mere nine feet.
Page 160: On nights when the Lincolns are in attendance, the partition is removed. Red, white, and blue bunting is draped over the railing and a portrait of George Washington faces out at the audience, designating that the president of the United States is in the house.
Page 160: Like many actors, he spends so much time on the road that he doesn't have a permanent address. So Ford's Opera House, as the theater is formally known, is his permanent address.
Page 160: ... an Our American Cousin rehearsal is taking place... The show has been presented eight previous time at Ford’s...
Page 161: "... stage carpenter James J. Clifford bounds into the room... Clifford is estatic...
Page 161: Booth has performed here often and is more familiar with its hidden backstage tunnels...
Page 195: Booth’s second act of preparation that afternoon was using a pen knife to carve a very small peephole in the back wall of the state box. Now he looks through the hole to get a better view of the president.
Page 242: But Mudd's five-hundred-acre estate...
Page 278: Mary Surratt... claustrophobia and disfigurement caused by the hood... One eyewitness called her cell aboard the Montauk "barely habitable."''
Television adaptation
O'Reilly told USA Today in a phone interview published in the September 29, 2011 issue that he talked with producers about turning the book into a cable television special. Tony Scott was working on adapting the book for the National Geographic Channel when he committed suicide on August 19, 2012. Production had already begun in Richmond, Virginia. In the film Virginia Repertory Theatre's November Theatre represented Fords Theatre. The film aired on National Geographic Channel on February 17, 2013 hosted and narrated by Tom Hanks. The docudrama was aired in memorial tribute to Tony Scott. The television film averaged 3.4 million viewers, scoring about 1 million viewers in the 25-54 demographic. It was National Geographic's highest-rated television airing surpassing Inside 9/11, which drew 3 million in August 2005. The record was broken by Killing Kennedy, which drew in 3,354,000 viewers while Lincoln took 3,351,000.
