The Lincoln Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Legacy from 1860 to Now (Library of America #192) (Hardcover)

~ Harold Holzer (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This hefty Library of America anthology, edited by Lincoln scholar Holzer (co-chairman of the U.S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission), is a solid compilation of work on Abraham Lincoln from a diverse selection of writers in various genres, celebrating his extensive legacy and providing insight from a number of angles and time periods. From William Cullen Bryant's introduction of the little-known Illinois Republican at Cooper Union in Manhattan to Barack Obama's 2007 presidential candidacy announcement (made on Lincoln's birthday at Springfield's Old State Capitol, where Lincoln delivered his "House Divided" speech), Holzer follows the president's legacy through marquee names like Whitman, Hawthorne, Tolstoy, Marx, Churchill and Doctorow. Including a helpful index and a chronology of Lincoln's life, this voluminous, thorough collection will keep Lincoln fans reading well past the beloved president's upcoming bicentennial.
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From Booklist

For this collection of more than 100 selections from writings about Lincoln, anthologist Holzer largely avoids history and biography as such and concentrates on imaginative literature. Whether by poet, dramatist, or novelist, works in the genre tend to polarize into mythology or iconoclasm about the Lincoln image. Holzer’s introduction to each piece fits it into the historical fluctuations in Lincoln’s reputation, against the periodic exaltation of which critic Edmund Wilson, Lincoln’s law partner William Herndon, and novelist Gore Vidal all rebelled. Their excerpts contrast with the wealth of laudatory material that Holzer presents, which includes verse by Walt Whitman and Carl Sandburg, lyrics of songs, acts and scenes from plays and screenplays, and passages from historical fiction. Including memorial addresses and historical essays, Holzer’s volume faithfully represents the range of feelings and meanings writers from 1860 to the present have drawn from the Lincoln story. This title is offered both separately and in a three-volume boxed set, The Lincoln Bicentennial Collection (9781598530360, $99.95), which includes the two-volume Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings (1989), edited by Don E. Fehrenbacher. --Gilbert Taylor

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 964 pages
• Publisher: Library of America (December 26, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159853033X
• ISBN-13: 978-1598530339
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #153,735 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "O captain, my captain....", April 13, 2009

By	John Sollami (Stamford, CT) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I was made aware of this title through the recent Lincoln PBS special with Sam Waterson and Harold Holzer. The readings on the show made me want to hear them again, and they are all here in this very good collection. Particularly interesting is the poem by Melville, who met Lincoln and asked for an ambassadorship to Florence, Italy, which he didn't get. Also of interest is the Nathanael Hawthorne description upon first meeting Lincoln. And of course, the poems of Walt Whitman are forever poignant. Lincoln's appeal to poets, writers, and the world was such because he himself was something of a poet and loved Shakespeare and all literature.
This is a fine collection. It should be read in a historical context, divorced from the political struggles we endure today.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Library of America's second Lincoln book blunder, September 15, 2009

By	Paul M Margel "pmndjn" (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Oh, this book was terrible! No joke, just atrocious! It was killing me to go through it.
Almost fifty years since the last worthy anthology of writings on Lincoln (LINCOLN AND THE CIVIL WAR, ed. by Courtlandt Canby, 1960), I was really looking forward to this work, but it falls short of even minimal expectations.
Whereas Canby and Paul Angle before him (THE LINCOLN READER, 1947) produced outstanding anthologies by skillfully arranging and editing contemporary and modern book passages outlining and analyzing Lincoln's life and Presidency, this book is mostly poems, odes, speeches and other uninformative and unsubstantial verse simply printed in order of their publication. What do such writings tell us about Lincoln's life or the great decisions that constitute his legacy, as the book's subtitle states? How could an essay like Tom Taylor's "Lincoln Foully Assassinated" which doesn't even mention John Wilkes Booth and his actual deed be included? Unbelievable! Or John Greenleaf Whittier's "The Emancipation Group" with nothing about the evolution of the Emancipation Proclamation and its advocates?! Just more lyrics and fluff. Where are the writings of late scholars like James Ford Rhodes, Alan Nevins or James G. Randall? Or the great modern historians like David Donald, Doris Kearns Goodwin, or James McPherson?
It wasn't enough for the Library of America to replace the late dean of Lincoln scholars Don Fehrenbacher's introduction to its LINCOLN SPEECHES AND WRITINGS with Gore Vidal, now they must insult serious students again with another bow to verse over scholarship. There is SOME good, solid history by Lincoln secretaries Nicolay & Hay, Winston Churchill, and Shelby Foote, and the life chronology at the end is better than most. But these hardly justify $40 for over 800 pages of fluff. By far, this book is more suited to the literature section, not biography or history.

20 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars On Lincoln, January 20, 2009

By	Christian Schlect (Yakima, Washington/USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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While I consider this anthology an essential purchase for anyone with a bookshelf devoted to Abraham Lincoln, it does contain certain selections I found unworthy. These were mainly works of historical fiction by modern (but not great) writers including Irving Stone, Gore Vidal, William Safire and--especially--Adam Braver.

On the larger positive side, this volume gives the reader the handy opportunity to read important thoughts about Mr. Lincoln by Walt Whitman, W.E.B. Du Bois, Reinhold Niebuhr, Jacques Barzun and many others.

While I admire the editor Harold Holzer, I suspect this one-time aide to Gov. Mario Cuomo (a former New York political leader who has an excellent piece rightfully included by Mr. Holzer in this anthology) has stacked the deck somewhat in favor of selections and commentary that support the attempted capture of Mr. Lincoln's legacy by the modern Democratic Party.