Synopsis
Celebrate the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth with this new edition of his greatest speeches and writings
Abraham Lincoln endowed the American language with a vigor and moral energy that has all but disappeared from today's public rhetoric. Lincoln's writings are testaments of our history, windows into his enigmatic personality, and resonant examples of the writer's art. The Portable Abraham Lincoln contains the great public speeches-the first debate with Stephen Douglas, the "House Divided"speech, the Gettysburg Address, the Second Inaugural Address-along with less familiar letters and memoranda that chart Lincoln's political career, his evolving stand against slavery, and his day-to-day conduct of the Civil War. This edition includes a revised introduction, updated notes on the text, a chronology of Lincoln's life, and four new selections of his writing.
Library Journal
This abbreviated edition of Lincoln speeches, letters, and notes brings the man ready to hand. Drawn from the fuller Library of America collection (1989), this collection shows Lincoln at work in law, politics, and war. All the great Lincoln works are here, with the added bonus of several personal memos that show Lincoln's humor. Reviled in life but revered in death, Lincoln has become the singlemost important American public writer: his words recalling those ``mystic chords of memory'' that bind Americans to the Declaration of Independence as the seedbed for all definitions of freedom ring true today in a post-Cold War World. Larger libraries will prefer the fuller Lincoln editions for their shelves, and general readers will find much the same fare in the recent collection, Lincoln on Democracy ( LJ 10/15/91), compiled by Mario Cuomo, but Delbanco's intelligent selection will also help us ``get right with Lincoln'' and appreciate how the prairie lawyer became the poet of American democracy.-- Randall M. Miller, St. Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia