Historical Biography - United States - 19th Century, First Ladies & Families - Biography, Washington, D.C. - History, American & Canadian Letters, Presidents of the United States - Biography, Presidents of the United States - General & Miscellaneous, Unio

Lincoln at Home

Name: Lincoln at Home
Author: David Herbert Donald
ISBN: 9780743201995

by Donald, David Herbert

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Overview

Here is an intimate glimpse of the sixteenth president as husband and father -- a cheerful man when he played with his children; a desolate man struck down with grief at the death of his son. The desperately busy and distracted man who managed one of the most difficult periods in American history was also a dedicated family man.

About the Author, David Herbert Donald

David Herbert Donald is the author of Lincoln, which won the prestigious Lincoln Prize and was on the New York Times bestseller list for fourteen weeks, and of Lincoln at Home. He has twice won the Pulitzer Prize, for Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War, and for Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe. He is the Charles Warren Professor of American History and of American Civilization Emeritus at Harvard University and resides in Lincoln, Massachusetts.

Biography

David Herbert Donald is the author of numerous books, including Lincoln's Herndon, Lincoln Reconsidered, and The Civil War and Reconstruction. He has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for biography: in 1961 for Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War and in 1988 for Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe.

The Charles Warren Professor of American History at Harvard University, he has also taught at Johns Hopkins, Princeton, Oxford, and Columbia. A native of Mississippi and the past president of the Southern Historical Association, he received his graduate training at the University of Illinois. He lives in Lincoln, Massachusetts.

Author biography courtesy of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Harvard's Donald, two-time Pulitzer winner and author of the standard biography Lincoln, delivers a frustratingly brief discussion of a complex subject. The mere 32 pages of large-type prose that Donald dedicates to his theme are nowhere near adequate to the task of portraying the bittersweet intensities, banal intrigues and madness that so often defined life within the Lincoln family circle. Donald's essay (previously published in The White House: The First Two Hundred Years) is based on his inaugural lecture in the Presidential Lecture Series at the White House. As such it focuses on the well-known and not always interesting details of the Lincolns' domestic life in the executive mansion: Mary overspending, young Willie and Tad cavorting and Lincoln always tolerating. The second part of this volume is a scant collection of all known letters exchanged between members of the immediate Lincoln family, written by Abraham, Mary and eldest son, Robert. The letters between Abraham and Mary have all been previously published. Like those written by Robert, they do not tell us much. They tend to be brief and are invariably businesslike, and deal with mundane matters (the purchase of clothing, schedules for arrivals and departures, etc.). The price is steep for such slim content; readers seeking more than a glimpse of the Lincoln family should consult the excellent books dedicated more fully to this theme, the most conspicuous being Jean Baker's Mary Todd Lincoln. Agent, Ike Williams, Palmer and Dodge. 4-city author tour. (Nov.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

David Walton

Donald's notes and commentary enliven [the letters], and his essay on the Lincoln White House is a small gem of historical compression, setting Abraham and Mary Lincoln's loneliness and isolation in Washington and their string of domestic tragedies against the panorama of the nation's turmoil- all in under three dozen pages.
—New York Times Book Review