Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer [Hardcover]

Fred Kaplan (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 28, 2008

For Abraham Lincoln, whether he was composing love letters, speeches, or legal arguments, words mattered. In Lincoln, acclaimed biographer Fred Kaplan explores the life of America’s sixteenth president through his use of language as a vehicle both to express complex ideas and feelings and as an instrument of persuasion and empowerment. Like the other great canonical writers of American literature – a status he is gradually attaining – Lincoln had a literary career that is inseparable from his life story. An admirer and avid reader of Burns, Byron, Shakespeare, and the Old Testament, Lincoln was the most literary of our presidents. His views on love, liberty, and human nature were shaped by his reading and knowledge of literature. Since Lincoln, no president has written his own words and addressed his audience with equal and enduring effectiveness. Kaplan focuses on the elements that shaped Lincoln’s mental and imaginative world; how his writings molded his identity, relationships, and career; and how they simultaneously generated both the distinctive political figure he became and the public discourse of the nation. This unique account of Lincoln’s life and career highlights the shortcomings of the modern presidency, reminding us, through Lincoln’s legacy and appreciation for language, that the careful and honest use of words is a necessity for successful democracy. Illuminating and engrossing, Lincoln brilliantly chronicles Abraham Lincoln’s genius with language.

--This text refers to the MP3 CD edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this intriguing biography, English professor and literary biographer Kaplan (The Singular Mark Twain) analyzes Abraham Lincoln's writings, from the great civic anthems of his presidency to love letters, legal briefs, poems and notebook jottings, and finds a first-rate literary talent—a master storyteller with an earthy wit, sharp logic and an ear for poetic phrasing. From wide reading, Kaplan contends, Lincoln gleaned influences—an Aesopian moralism, a biblical sense of providence, a Byronic melancholy, a Shakespearean understanding of human complexity—that shaped his approach to issues and, through his words, the nation's attitude toward slavery and war. Kaplan sometimes overdoes his critical exegeses of Lincoln's more forgettable efforts ([Lincoln's] comic depiction of what happens when two people of the same sex are bedded has a heterodox clarity that reveals his familiarity with bodily realities) but many of these readings, like his recasting as free verse a speech on agricultural improvements, are eye-opening. The result is a fresh, revealing study of both Lincoln's language and character. (Nov. 3)
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From Booklist

Has Lincoln been done to death? Not hardly. Distinguished biographer Kaplan takes a new, solid, meaningful, even moving approach to the sixteenth president. Considerable previous attention has been paid to Lincoln’s articulateness in both oral and written word. The question is always, then, how did this woefully undereducated man become so good with words? It is Kaplan’s and his reader’s pleasure to follow an extensive chronological survey of the books and other writings Lincoln studied, from his boyhood (he “was born into a national culture in which language was the most widely available key to individual growth and achievement. . . . It was the tool by which he explored and defined himself”) to the presidential years (“lifelong development as a writer had brought the country a president with the capacity to express himself and the national concerns more effectively that any president ever had, with the exception of Thomas Jefferson”). Consequently, we witness the admirable growth—flowering—of an amazingly accomplished autodidact. This book is not an introduction to Lincoln’s life, to be sure; it is for readers who know the essentials. --Brad Hooper

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Harper (October 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060773340
• ISBN-13: 978-0060773342
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #299,897 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Lincoln's Writing Analyzed December 18, 2008

By David Kinchen

Format:Hardcover

BOOK REVIEW: Abe Lincoln: Writer Extraordinaire

By David M. Kinchen

Abraham Lincoln was a rising star in the new Republican Party when he was invited in August 1859 to speak at the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society fair in Milwaukee at the end of September. He accepted the offer despite a busy court schedule, relates Fred Kaplan in "Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer" (HarperCollins, 416 pages, $27.95).

Kaplan, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English at Queens College in New York City, devotes more space in his book to this speech than he does to more famous literary efforts by Lincoln, including the Gettysburg Address. Using perhaps the best analytical mind of any of our presidents, Lincoln presented a powerful but subtle argument for freedom at a time when the nation was about to be torn asunder over slavery. To put the speech into its historical context, John Brown's raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), was only a few weeks in the future (Oct. 16, 1859).

Arranging the opening elements of the Milwaukee speech like a poem, Kaplan creates verse that is reminiscent of Walt Whitman, whose "Leaves of Grass" was first published in 1855 and revised several times thereafter.

Here are the opening lines from Kaplan's typographical realignment of the opening of Lincoln's September 1859 Milwaukee speech:

Every blade of grass is a study;
And to produce two,
Where there was but one,
Is both a profit and a pleasure.
And not grass alone;
But soils, seeds, and seasons
Hedges, ditches, and fences,
Draining, droughts, and irrigation --
Plowing, hoeing, and harrowing --
Reaping, mowing, and threshing --
Saving crops, pests of crops, diseases of crops,
And what will prevent or cure them --
Implements, utensils, and machines,
Their relative merits,
And [how] to improve them --
Hogs, horses, and cattle --
Sheep, goats, and poultry --
Trees, shrubs, fruits, plants, and flowers --
The thousand things
Of which these are specimens --
Each a world of study within itself.

* * *

Kaplan says the Milwaukee speech is Lincoln's best poem and the reference to specimens anticipates Whitman's 1882 volume "Specimen Days."

The book explores new ground in the vast field of Lincoln biographies -- especially relevant with the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth next Feb. 12 -- and the election of another Illinois lawyer, Barack Obama, as the 44th President of the United States.

The subtext is that the tall, gangly railsplitter, originally from Hardin County, Kentucky and almost totally self-educated, has a present-day counterpart in the Ivy League educated Obama, whose education more closely mirrors that of Robert Todd Lincoln, the 16th president's oldest son.

Kaplan stresses throughout this exhaustively researched and very readable book -- you don't have to be an English major like me to appreciate it -- that words mattered to Lincoln. He knew the difference between lightning and a lightning bug -- as Mark Twain so aptly phrased it -- and used language as a vehicle to express complicated ideas and feelings and as an instrument of persuasion and empowerment.

This was true whether Lincoln was composing speeches like the Milwaukee one that examined capital and labor; legal arguments (Lincoln was a prominent railroad attorney with a busy practice first in Springfield, the state capital and later in Chicago, the Prairie State's booming metropolis); or even love letters.

So, you say, aren't all presidents gifted with the ability to make words work for them. Actually not, says Kaplan. Ronald Reagan may have been the Great Communicator, but the Illinois native and former California governor was blessed with talented speech writers. The same goes for Franklin D. Roosevelt and most other presidents. You have to go back to John Quincy Adams, the 6th President (1825-1829) to find someone as gifted with the pen as Lincoln, Kaplan writes.

Kaplan, the author of biographies of Twain, Gore Vidal, Dickens and others, says that the literary output of Lincoln, collected in a standard eight-volume edition published in 1953 (see the wonderful annotated bibliography for details on this and other relevant works) is inseparable from his life story.

Lincoln from the start was a bookworm or, to use the phrase Dorothy Parker employed, a "constant reader." Although not religious in the traditional sense -- a topic Kaplan also explores -- Lincoln was intimately familiar with the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments. He loved the poetry of Robert Burns and in the last year of his life, in January 1865, was invited to give a tribute to Burns at the Washington, D.C. dinner held on January 25, Burns' birthday.

Otherwise engaged -- the war was still raging -- Lincoln sent a toast to the Burns Club of Washington: "I can say nothing worthy of his generous heart, and transcendent genius. Thinking of what he has said, I can not say anything which seems worth saying."

By modestly saying that he couldn't add to the tributes to Burns, Lincoln was actually giving the Scottish poet his highest praise. Now that's great writing!

He devoured Byron, Shakespeare and read constantly when he was on the legal circuit in central Illinois or during any spare moment. Fellow bookworms -- and I'm one -- can instantly identify with Lincoln.

Lincoln put his reading to good use, Kaplan writes. His views on love, liberty, and human nature were shaped by his reading and knowledge of literature.

We can only hope that Barack Obama -- like Lincoln a transplant to Illinois -- can express his ideas and ideals in words he has crafted, as Lincoln did. Since Lincoln, no president has written his own words and reached out to his audience as effectively as the man who had only a few months of formal education, but who was supremely skilled with the English language.

Words count, Kaplan reminds us, as if we need reminding in the wake of past presidencies -- of both political parties -- when words led the nation astray. "Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer" highlights the shortcomings of the modern presidency, reminding us, through Lincoln's legacy and appreciation for language, that the careful and honest use of words is a necessity for successful democracy.

Kaplan: "Lincoln is distinguished from every other president, with the exception of Jefferson, in that we can be certain that he wrote every word to which his name is attached," and he "was also the last president whose character and standards in the use of language avoided the distortions and other dishonest uses of language that have done so much to undermine the credibility of national leaders."

44 of 53 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars One of two presidents who liked to read October 28, 2008

By Theodore A. Rushton VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Another book about Lincoln?

Yes! And a great book. From his love letters to the Gettysburg and second inaugural addresses, Lincoln was a master of putting great ideas into succinct words. In contrast to recent presidents, who are "too busy" to read much of anything, Lincoln and John Quincy Adams are the only presidents for whom literature and life were inseparable.

During his presidency, his two favourite volumes were Shakespeare's plays and the Bible -- both written in the same era -- in which he found an echo of the tragedy of the American Civil War. Most significantly, he did not often read to relax. Lincoln read to educate himself, to improve his mind and to understand the motives and methods of himself and others.

Think of the current financial crisis in which "deregulation" became liberty for bankers and a disaster for consumers. Lincoln understood such issues in terms of stories, such as "the shepherd who drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a Black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty."

"The claim that white Liberty requires Black servitude is a definition of liberty, in Lincoln's telling phrase, from 'the wolf's dictionary', and that dictionary must be repudiated," Kaplan wrote. Think of the impact today had former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan read and understood as much as deeply as Lincoln.

From his earliest days Lincoln used stories to illustrate his views. This explains the origins of the quality of his writing, both in terms of style and content. It's much more than just "another book about Lincoln", this is primarily a book about the growth of a great writer.

It's similar to 'Lives of the Artists' by Calvin Tomkins; the bottom line is the dedication to a single theme that produces greatness. As a child he was brought up on 'Dilworth's Speller'; in his early adult years he read Byron, then Weems, Burns and Goethe. None were passing fancies; each was a dedication to a particular author before he moved on to a more serious topic. His "reading" for the law took 10 years.

This book helps explain why men such as Lincoln are very rare.

Interestingly, instead of relying on the will of God, friends such as John Todd Stuart said Lincoln was "an avowed and open Infidel -- Sometimes bordered on atheism ... always denied that Jesus was the son of God as understood and maintained by the Christian world." Instead of an instant acceptance of Jesus as his saviour, Lincoln's reading was on the great authors to understand the ways of mankind.

He didn't reject the Bible, but he didn't "court" evangelicals and other true believers. Instead of instant salvation, he rejected fanatics. Lincoln was always eager to read, to learn and to write better. He never thought himself as blessed with complete wisdom which closed his mind to any and all new ideas.

Breathes there such a man today ?

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating speculations about the influences on Lincoln January 4, 2009

By B. D. Weimer

Format:Hardcover

Professor Kaplan does an excellent job of reconstructing the likely influences upon Lincoln as a developing writer and thinker.

Lincoln was a very guarded and private man, and so much of the evidence mined by Kaplan is necessarily circumstantial. In particular, he draws many inferences about Lincoln's private beliefs from authors he likely carefully read as a youth, such as Burns, Byron and Shakespeare. Professor Kaplan's expertise in literature and history makes him well suited to this task. And many of the inferences he draws do seem very plausible.

Still, I give the book only 4 stars rather than 5, because it seems that Professor Kaplan gets carried away at times with his speculations about Lincoln's thought life, projecting greater certainty than the circumstantial evidence would warrant, and downplaying contrary evidence.

For example, Professor Kaplan seems anxious to establish that Lincoln did not believe in the afterlife. He returns to that point repeatedly throughout the book. Yet he quotes from a speech that Lincoln gave in honor of Washington, which stated his belief that the deceased Washington was only sleeping, and that "the last trump shall awaken our Washington." (Page 78) Kaplan does not comment on the significance of these words -- he quotes the speech for another purpose. Yet Lincoln was very careful with the language of his public statements, seeking honesty and precision. And he chose his words on religion very carefully. Why then would he have given a speech stating his belief that Washington's soul was only sleeping, and that he would be resurrected at the end of time?

(I suspect that Lincoln was uncertain about the immortality of the soul in his early years. But we know from Lincoln's public statements that he believed in both God and prayer, and that his belief in a personal God became stronger in his White House years. Lincoln also had a high view of humanity. Thus, it seems likely that he came to believe that humanity, with its ability to grasp the infinite, was made for immortality.)

Overall, though, Kaplan's book provides many fascinating insights into the probable development of Lincoln as a thinker and a writer. It is very enjoyable to read. So, with the caveat noted above, I recommend the book to the many fans of our greatest president!