An astounding number of books have been written on Abraham Lincoln.
Our Library of Congress contains over one thousand of them in
well-nigh every modern language. Yet, incredible as it may seem, no
miner has until to-day delved in these vast fields of Lincolniana
until he has brought together the most precious of the golden words
written of and by the Man of the People. Howe has collected a few of
the best poems on Lincoln; Rice, Oldroyd and others, the elder prose
tributes and reminiscences. McClure has edited Lincoln's yarns and
stories; Nicolay and Hay, his speeches and writings. But each
successive twelfth of February has emphasized the growing need for a
unification of this scattered material.
The present volume offers, in small compass, the most noteworthy
essays, orations, fiction and poems on Lincoln, together with some
fiction, with characteristic anecdotes and "yarns" and his most famous
speeches and writings. Taken in conjunction with a good biography, it
presents the first succinct yet comprehensive view of "the first
American." The Introduction gives some account of the celebration of
Lincoln's Birthday and of his principal biographers.