Lincoln Day by Day
edited by Earl Schenck Miers
Book #1163
$45.00
1,164 pp., index, hardcover.
This revised and enlarged edition of Lincoln Day by Day more than doubles the number of entries which appeared in the original volumes. No one can possibly research or write authoritatively in the Lincoln field without consulting this work. Here you will find, as Paul M. Angle wrote in referring to the original edition, “as faithfully as print can provide it, a mirror-like replica of Lincoln's life.”
“The value of [this book] goes far beyond that of a device for testing the soundness of Lincoln biography and the genuiness of his autographed letters and documents. They make a contribution of their own. Nowhere else, for example, is the real nature of is law practice a mixture of important and inconsequential litigation in a variety of courts, both in Springfield and on the circuit so graphically revealed. Nowhere else is the alternation of law and politics in his life so clearly shown. From no other treatise can one derive an understanding of the true character of the senatorial campaign of 1858, for the tendency of every writer has been to emphasize the seven formal debates and to ignore the daily speeches, the grinding travel, and the constant personal campaigning to which each candidate devoted all except for a few days.”
The final editing of the last volume, devoted to the Civil War years,was a massive undertaking. Thousands of documents and newspapers were studied. “In addition to the activities of the President, those of the members of his family, secretaries, and emissaries have been included.”
“In short,” writes Paul Angle, this book is “to Lincoln study what the steel frame of a skyscraper is to the finished structure.”
