The Lincoln Reader

New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1947. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. xii, 564 pages. Illustrations. References. Bibliography. Index. No DJ present. Paul Angle, the noted Lincoln scholar, selected passages from the works on contemporaries, later biographers, and even Lincoln himself, to form a composite portrait of one of the wisest and most beloved American presidents. These passages, interwoven by Angle's running commentary, blend into a single vivid narrative of Lincoln's life, from his boyhood in Indiana to his assassination and funeral. The Lincoln Reader has long been considered the most definitive, complete, and authentic retelling of the life of Abraham Lincoln. The Lincoln Reader is a biography written by sixty-five authors. From their writings one hundred seventy-nine selections have been chosen and arranged to form an integrated narrative. Great names in Lincoln biography--Carl Sandberg, Ida M. Tarbell, Lord Charnwood, Albert J. Beveridge, William H. Herndon, John G. Nicolay, and John Hay--stand out prominently; others, like James G. Randall and Benjamin P. Thomas, are better know to scholars than to the general public. Quite a few whose writings appear here have been forgotten by almost everyone, and at lest two who wrote contemporary new stories which Angle included have never emerged from anonymity. Some of Lincoln's own writings have notable biographical significance. Mr. Angle (1901-1975) received a master's degree from the University of Illinois in 1924. His involvement with Abraham Lincoln began in 1925, when he was appointed executive secretary of the Lincoln Centennial Association. From the association's headquarters in Springfield he prepared a series of books on Lincoln's day by day activities of the years 1854, 1858, 1859, 1860. In 1932 he was co author with Carl Sandburg of “Mary Lincoln, Wife and Widow.” which drew critical praise for his arrangement of the letters, documents and appendix. In 1928, when The Atlantic Monthly magazine began publishing “Lincoln the Lover,” a series of letters and memorandums ascribed to Lincoln concerning his early romance with Ann Rutledge, Mr. Angle was one of the experts who swiftly challenged their authenticity. The magazine dropped the series. His next book was “Here I Have Lived: A History of Lincoln's Springfield. 1821 1865,” published in 1935 and reissued in 1950. It was followed by “A Handbook of Illinois History.” written with Richard L. Beyer, in 1943, and “A Shelf of Lincoln Books: A Critical, Selective Bibliography” (1946). These all received wide acclaim but nothing like the public response to “The Lincoln Reader.” a one volume biography put together from the writings of 65 authors and published by the Rutgers University Press in 1947. Charles Poore reviewing it in The New York Times, said of Mr. Angle's introduction to each chapter: “The selections from the works of the different authors are introduced in turn so unobtrusively that the transitions from one point of view to another and from one style to another seldom jar.” In 1932, Mr. Angle was named historian of the Illinois State Historical Library and secretary of the state historical society. a position he held until he took the Chicago post in 1945. He continued to publish books on Lincoln and other historical themes until his death. Condition: Good.

Keywords: Abraham Lincoln, Presidents, New Salem, Attorney, Counsellor-at-Law, Mary Todd, Politician, Stephen Douglas, Republican Party, Abolition, Slavery, Civil War, Emancipation, White House, Gettysburg, Assassination, Funeral Procession, Springfield, Illin

[Book #1596]

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