Product Description

The Lincoln Bicentennial Collection contains three complete volumes of works by and about the 16th President. The first two books, the landmark Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1832–1858 and Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1859– 1865, which Alfred Kazin called it a “momentous and thrilling addition to any private library,” have been reissued with commemorative bicentennial jackets. Edited by Don E. Fehrenbacher, these two books include all Lincoln’s significant works, including both sides of the complete Lincoln-Douglas debates, dozens of speeches, hundreds of personal political letters, communications to the generals in the field, presidential messages and proclamations, poems, and private reflections on democracy, slavery, and the meaning of the Civil War’s immense suffering.

The boxed set also includes The Lincoln Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Legacy from 1860 to Now, which collects pieces by 100 major authors and important historical figures from Lincoln’s time to the present. Edited by celebrated Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer, this collection gathers fascinating writing from a variety of genres to illuminate the Lincoln we know and revere. It enables readers to rediscover Lincoln anew through the eyes of some of our greatest writers, including Winston Churchill, Frederick Douglass, Ralph Waldo Emerson, U. S. Grant, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Victor Hugo, Henrik Ibsen, Karl Marx, Herman Melville, Leo Tolstoy, Mark Twain, Gore Vidal, Booker T. Washington, H. G. Wells, Walt Whitman, Garry Wills, and many others. Historian James M. McPherson remarked, “This extraordinary anthology contains the best and most evocative words written about Abraham Lincoln over the last two centuries, skillfully edited by Harold Holzer.”

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #119912 in Books
• Published on: 2008-12-26
• Format: Box set
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 2700 pages

Review
“The best selection of Lincoln’s writings available today, perhaps the best ever.”
— Christian Science Monitor

About the Author
Don E. Fehrenbacher (1920-1997), whom the historian George Fredrickson called “the foremost Lincoln scholar of his generation,” was professor of history at Stanford University and the author of several books, including Prelude to Greatness: Lincoln in the 1850’s, the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics, and Lincoln in Text and Context. Shortly before his death, he was awarded the 1997 Lincoln Prize, the nation’s highest annual award for Civil War studies.

Harold Holzer serves as co-chairman of the U.S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, lectures widely on Lincoln and the Civil War, and is a frequent Lincoln commentator on television. He has written, co-written, and edited more than thirty books, including The Lincoln Image (1984), Lincoln on Democracy (1990), Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President (2004), and Lincoln President-Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter 1860-1861 (2008).

Customer Reviews

LINCOLN'S SPEECHES AND WRITINGS, 2 VOLUMES


Back in 1989 I purchased the two volumes from The Library of America of Abraham Lincoln's speeches, letters, and miscellaneous writings. The volume 1832-1858 also offers the Lincoln-Douglas Debates while the 2nd volume, 1859-1865, offers presidential messages and proclamations. These two volumes having approx 1600 pages are taken from The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy Basler.

Having several volumes from The Library of America, I welcome new books as they arrive in their catalog, feeling their goal of preserving and placing in front of American readers many of our important American writers a very worthy endeavor. An endeavor very much needed but neglected until The Library of America took up their publishing project in the early 1980s. I have just read a review claiming that The Library of America sometimes introduces 'politics' into their choice of books, materials, or authors, yet in over several decades of buying their books, I have not found that to be true, nor do I believe that accusation.

If you are an American and wish to read American authors as their manuscripts existed in the originals as the author wanted them published, then you can do no better than books from The Library of America. All books are printed on acid free paper, bound and sewn to stand up to multiple readings. The price can be lofty for books, yet today all books are rather expensive, be that as it may, Library of American gives good value for your cost.

Semper Fi.

Re-release of Library of America's Lincoln's Writings.
In recognition of Lincoln's 200th birthday, the Library of America is re-releasing Lincoln's essential Speeches and Writings collection. This set also comes with a newly published book, "The Lincoln Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Legacy from 1860 to Now," edited by Harold Holzer. He currently serves as co-chairman of the U.S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, and just finished "Lincoln President-Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter 1860-1861", which was a great read, I may add.

The Lincoln Biecentennial Collection
Why would anyone buy a set of books for over $60 without some sort of detailed description that tells the buyer what it is he is buying? The Amazon Website really misses the mark. They run a book store where all you can see is the cover of the book and the price! If there are no reader reviews (which are not necessarily always reliable or helpful), how can you determine whether a book or books is of interest?