Lincoln as I Knew Him: Gossip, Tributes, and Revelations from His Best Friends and Worst Enemies - Softcover

Holzer, Harold

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1565126815 ISBN 13: 9781565126817

Publisher: Algonquin Books, 2009

Synopsis

Forget what you think you know about Abraham Lincoln. Yes, he was a brilliant orator, a shrewd politician, and a determined leader who guided us through the bloodiest war in American history. But he also was a terrible dresser, rarely bothered to comb his hair, annoyed his colleagues by constantly reading out loud, loved raunchy stories, and let his kids run all over him.

Author and Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer sifted through nineteenth-century letters, diary entries, books, and speeches written by people who knew Lincoln and offers up the real skinny on the man who was arguably America's greatest president. From the famous--Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, Ulysses S. Grant--to the not-so-famous--White House secretaries, artists, bodyguards, childhood pals, and a rejected fiancée--this collection presents a revealing, and at times contradictory, view of our sixteenth president, from his boyhood through his White House years. These firsthand anecdotes and recollections strip away the myths and legends to uncover the authentic Abraham Lincoln before the history books got hold of him.

About this title

Review:

"[A] revelatory little book." --Parade Magazine
"Inspiring . . . A collection that sheds light not only on Lincoln but also on his times." --Publishers Weekly
"Wonderfully thorough . . . even the most well-read of Lincoln lovers is sure to find something they have never read before." -- The Civil War News
"There are gems throughout." --Chicago Tribune

From the Back Cover:

What was Lincoln really like?

Depends on whom you ask...

Here are first-hand recollections from the famous (Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, Nathaniel Hawthorne) to the not-so-famous to the downright infamous (John Wilkes Booth).

Military men on Lincoln's leadership: "The President is nothing more than a well meaning baboon."

--General George McClellan

Journalists on Lincoln's character: "No man living has a kinder heart."

--Noah Brooks

Artists on Lincoln's appearance: "Mr. Lincoln had the saddest face I ever attempted to paint."

--Francis Bicknell Carpenter

Lady friends on Lincoln's courtship manners: "Mr. Lincoln was deficient in those little links which make up the great chain of womans happiness."

--Mary Owens

Advance Praise for Lincoln As I Knew Him:

"Inspiring ... A collection that sheds light not only on Lincoln but also on his times."

--Publisher's Weekly

"A pleasing admixture of the strange and the familiar, of poignance and humor, of iron and irony."

--Kirkus Reviews

About this edition

• Publisher: Algonquin Books
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1565126815
• ISBN 13: 9781565126817
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 281