The response to our New Life of Lincoln is so extraordinary as to
demand something more than mere acknowledgment from us.
Within ten days of the publication of the magazine no less than
forty thousand new buyers were added to our list, and at this writing
(November 25th) the increase has reached one hundred thousand, making
a clear increase of one hundred thousand in three months, and bringing
the total edition for the present number up to a quarter of a million.
But even more gratifying have been the strong expressions of approval
from many whose intimate knowledge of Lincoln's life enables them to
distinguish what is _new_ in this life.
As Mr. Medill says in an editorial in the Chicago "Tribune," "It is
not only full of new things, but is so distinct and clear in local
color that an interest attaches to it which is not found in other
biographies."
And Mr. R.W. Diller, of Springfield, Illinois, who knew Mr. Lincoln
intimately for nearly twenty years before his election to the
Presidency, writes to us about Miss Tarbell's article: "As far as read
she goes to rock-bottom evidence and will beat her Napoleon out of
sight."
There are certainly few men more familiar with all that has been
written about Lincoln than William H. Lambert, Esq., of Philadelphia,
whose collection includes practically every book, pamphlet, or printed
document about Lincoln, and who has one of the finest collections of
Lincolniana in the world. He writes:
"I have read your first article with intense interest, and I am
confident that you will make a most important addition to our
knowledge of Lincoln."
But perhaps it is better to print some of the letters we have received
commenting on the first article and on the early portrait and other
portraits and illustrations.
John T. Morse, Jr., author of the lives of Abraham Lincoln, John
Quincy Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin,
published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. in their "American Statesmen
Series," and editor of this series, writes as follows about the early
portrait: