In Lincoln’s Hand: His Original Manuscripts With Commentary by Distinguished Americans
by Harold Holzer and Joshua Wolf Shenk
Summary
On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth and in conjunction with the Library of Congress 2009 Bicentennial Exhibition, In Lincoln’s Hand offers an unprecedented look at perhaps our greatest president through vivid images of his handwritten letters, speeches, and even childhood notebooks—many never before made available to the public.
Edited by leading Lincoln scholars Joshua Wolf Shenk and Harold Holzer, this companion volume to the Library of Congress exhibition offers a fresh and intimate perspective on a man whose thoughts and words continue to affect history. To underscore the resonance of Lincoln’s writings on contemporary culture, each manuscript is accompanied by a reflection on Lincoln by a prominent American from the arts, politics, literature, or entertainment, including Toni Morrison, Sam Waterston, Robert Pinsky, Gore Vidal, and presidents Carter, George H.W., and George W. Bush.
While Lincoln’s words are quite well known, the original manuscripts boast a unique power and beauty and provide rare insight into the creative process. In this collection we can see the ebb and flow of Lincoln’s thoughts, emotions, hopes, and doubts. We can see where he paused to dip his pen in the ink or to capture an idea. We can see where he added a word or phrase, and where he crossed out others, searching for the most precise, and concise, expression. In these marks on the page, Lincoln’s character is available to us with a profound immediacy. From such icons as the Gettysburg Address and the inaugural speeches to seldom-seen but superb rarities, here is the world as Lincoln saw and shaped it in words and images that resound to this very day.
Excerpt
Documents/Contributors:
A Tendency to Melancholly” • Copybook verses • Adam Gopnik • Letter to Eliza Browning • George Saunders • Letter to John T. Stuart • Andrew Solomon • Letter to Mary Speed • E. L. Doctorow • Letter to Andrew Johnston, Including • Robert Pinsky • Letter to Mary Lincoln • Jennifer Fleischner • Fragment on Niagara Falls • Cynthia Ozick • Notes on the Practice of Law • Sandra Day O’Connor • Fragment on the Object of Government • Mario M. Cuomo • “A House Divided Against Itself” • Fragment on Dred Scott Decision • Walter Mosley • On Stephen Douglas • Michael Burlingame • Fragment on “The Higher Object of This Contest” • Lewis Lehrman • A Page from Lincoln-Douglas Debates Scrapbook • Richard J. Durbin • Letter to Jesse Fell, Including Autobiographical Sketch • Kathryn Harrison • Autobiographical Sketch for the Chicago Tribune • Douglas L. Wilson • Letter to George D. Prentice • Jonathan Alter • Farewell to Springfield • Sam Waterston • “We Cannot Escape History” • First Inaugural Address • William Safire • Letter to William H. Seward • President George H. W. Bush • Message to Congress • President George W. Bush • Proclamation Revoking Gen. Hunter’s Emancipation Order • Frank J. Williams • Reply to Horace Greeley’s Editorial • David W. Blight • Meditation on the Divine Will • President Jimmy Carter • Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation • John Hope Franklin • Two Telegrams to Gen. George B. McClellan • James M. McPherson • Letter to Fanny McCullough • Drew Gilpin Faust • “Let the Thing Be Pressed” • Letter to Gen. Joseph Hooker • Gabor Boritt • Letter to Mary Lincoln • Thomas Mallon • “Albany Letter” to Erastus Corning on Civil Liberties • David Herbert Donald • Verse on Lee’s Invasion of the North • Newt Gingrich • Letter to Gen. George G. Meade • Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner • Letters to James Hackett • Liam Neeson • Letter to James C. Conkling • President Bill Clinton • Letter to Cpt. James M. Cutts, Jr. • Doris Kearns Goodwin • Gettysburg Address • Toni Morrison • Letter to Gov. Michael Hahn • Bliss Broyard • Letter to Albert Hodges • Ken Burns • Telegrams to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant • Conan O’Brien • “Blind Memorandum” • Philip Gourevitch • Letter to Eliza Gurney • John Updike • Second Inaugural Address • 1865 Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Sven Birkerts
Author's Biography
Harold Holzer is cochairman of the U.S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and author, coauthor, or editor of thirty-one books on Lincoln and the Civil War era, including the award-winning Lincoln at Cooper Union and most recently, Lincoln: President-Elect.
Joshua Wolf Shenk is the author of Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness and the director of the Rose O’Neill Literary House at Washington College. His work has been published in Harper’s Magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, the Economist, and other publications, and in the national bestseller Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression.