Herndon's informants : letters, interviews, and statements about Abraham Lincoln

Author(s)

Bibliographic Information

Herndon's informants : letters, interviews, and statements about Abraham Lincoln

edited by Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis with the assistance of Terry Wilson

University of Illinois Press, c1998

Available at  / 1 libraries

Search this Book/Journal

Note

Letters, interviews, and statements collected by William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik

Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Winner of the Abraham Lincoln Institute Book Award More than 600 letters and interviews providing information about Abraham Lincoln's prepolitical and prelegal careers are included in this volume, a priceless collection never before available in one place. Women to whom Lincoln proposed marriage, political allies and adversaries, judges and fellow attorneys, longtime comrades, erstwhile friends--all speak out here in words first gathered by William H. Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, between 1865 and 1890. Historian David Herbert Donald has called Herndon's materials "the basic source for Abraham Lincoln's early years." Some of those Herndon questioned were illiterate; others could read but barely write. Completion of this undertaking took the editors to three major collections for the mammoth task of transcribing documents that often were nearly illegible. Invaluable to Lincoln scholars and intriguing to anyone curious about Lincoln and his times, the book includes an introduction, scholarly annotations, a registry of the informants, and a detailed topical index.

Table of Contents

Preface vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction xiii Editorial Note xxv Short Citations and Abbreviations xxix Herndon's Informants: The Texts 1. Letters, Interviews, and Statements Collected by William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik, 1865-92 3 2. Informant Testimony Reported in Herndon's Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life (1889) 707 3. Informant Testimony Reported in William H. Herndon's Letters to Jesse W. Weik 713 4. Informant Testimony Reported in Jesse W. Weik's The Real Lincoln (1922) 725 Register of Informants 737 Appendix: Brief Outline of the Joseph Hanks Family, by Paul H. Verduin 779 Index 785

by "Nielsen BookData"

Details

Page Top