The Assassination of Lincoln: History & Myth

LEWIS, Lloyd

ISBN 10: 1567314090 / ISBN 13: 9781567314090

Published by MJF Books n.y., New York, 2000

About this Item

8vo. Red and tan paper over boards, pictorial dust jacket. (10pp), 367pp. Near fine/near fine. Introduction by Mark E. Neely, Jr. Tight, quite nice reprint edition of Lewis's 1929 "Myths After Lincoln" -- with a lovely autograph addition: Tipped opposite the title page is a Typed Letter Signed from Neely, 1p, 8" X 11", Fort Wayne, IN, 1974 April 4. Addressed to noted Lincoln and Civil War scholar Arnold F. Gates (1914-93). Very good. On letterhead of "The Lincoln National Life Foundation," which lists Neely as director, the Pulitzer Prize winner chats cordially about a Lincoln image the institution needs and asks Gates for a copy. Signed "Mark" in blue ink. MONAGHAN 3108.

Seller Inventory # 40261

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Assassination of Lincoln: History & Myth
• Publisher: MJF Books n.y., New York
• Publication Date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1567314090
• ISBN 13: 9781567314090
• Binding: Hardcover
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Books
  • Abraham Lincoln

About this title

Synopsis

The Civil War officially ended at Appomattox soon after President Lincoln's second inauguration. During his first term he had been widely viewed by special-interest groups as a good-natured, indecisive bungler, and worse. In the South he was still despised, and many in the North, especially the radicals in the Republican party, distrusted and derided his leniency toward the vanquished. On the evening of April 14, 1865, an assassin's bullet irrevocably altered the way Abraham Lincoln would be viewed by Americans. In life a cunning politician, Lincoln became in death a selfless martyr. Lloyd Lewis explicates the mythology that evolved out of Lincoln's death, the outpouring of national grief, the pursuit of John Wilkes booth and the conspirators, booth's fate, and the frequent moving and reburial of Lincoln's coffin.

Review

"One of the standard works on the drama and events around Lincoln's death and the realities and the myths that came after... There are moments when Friend Lewis achieves laughter or a flash of poetry in a single sentence of a sober fact narrative."-Carl Sandburg -- Carl Sandburg "Indispensable ... to any historian of Lincoln's times, and it is fascinating reading. Lloyd Lewis presents in substance a brilliant study of the creation of myth out of natural event, and of the deification of a national hero."-Outlook Outlook