Lincoln: A Foreigner's Quest - Softcover

Morris, Jan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140276092 ISBN 13: 9780140276091

Publisher: Penguin, 2000

Synopsis

'A little jewel-box of a book' - The Spectator Abraham Lincoln, they say, has been more written about than anyone else except Jesus Christ, but this book is different. It presents Lincoln as seen by a foreigner. Jan Morris has been everywhere Lincoln went, from his birth-place in Kentucky via Springfield and Gettysburg to his death-room in Washington D.C., and the book reveals as much about her own evolving responses as it does about Lincoln's developing character. She ends the book a loving admirer - not so much of President Abraham Lincoln, politician and moulder of all our histories, but of Father Abraham, a man of poignant kindness and an artist.

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Review

The greatest of all American historical legends, Abraham Lincoln's life has been told and retold countless times. Good ole Abe stands alone, a colossal figure of peerless achievements: the Great Emancipator, the deliverer of the Gettysburg Address, the president who saved the Union and paved the way for the destiny of the modern US. It's more or less impossible to look beyond the layers of myth and legend now but this is a different kind of biography: whimsical, imaginative, empathic, it ambles through his life sketching an endearing though not unquestioning portrait of an American icon, seeking out the essence of the man. Jan Morris's motivation was the somewhat irritated incomprehension she felt when faced with the all-pervasive sainted status of the man on her first visit to the States in the 1950s. Since then she has explored and written about America extensively and it's clear that Lincoln was always somewhere at the back of her mind through all this. After many years of gestation, her insightful musings make for an absorbing, fresh perspective on the man and his legacy.

The narrative follows a journey through the country, a manner of pilgrimage, tracing the remarkable transformation of Lincoln's life as he migrated from humble beginnings in Kentucky, via social respectability as a lawyer and politician in Springfield, Illinois, and on to his ultimate destiny of the presidency and civil war leader. The picture that emerges is of a somewhat eccentric man of deep contradictions: feisty and capable of ruthlessness yet genuinely kind; prone to periods of misanthropy yet also blessed with an appealing sense of humour which manifested in self-deprecating remarks and aphoristic stories of enchantingly universal appeal and simple, homespun wisdom. Through it all though, right up to the tragic dénouement of which he reputedly had a premonition, this great man of destiny shines through as, essentially, a decent and straightforward man. The book does lack any pictures of the people and places in his life, perhaps a slight oversight, but then again, in view of the richly evocative nature of her portrayal, easily overlooked. --Alisdair Bowles

Synopsis

When Jan Morris first visited the United States, she was overwhelmed (and irritated) by the national obsession with Abraham Lincoln: the homespun myth of the awkward six-foot-four country boy who rose to unite the nation seemed too good to be true. So she resolved to make up her own mind, visiting the landmarks of his life to do so: his log-cabin birthplace in Kentucky, via Gettysburg and all the way to the Washington theatre where he was assassinated. This work, blending fact, narrative and imagination, is the result.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0140276092
• ISBN 13: 9780140276091
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224