Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years

An illustrated edition of Sandburg's definitive Lincoln biography, this volume makes a handsome gift for a Lincoln buff. Sandburg's original work covered six volumes and won a Pulitzer Prize, and was widely hailed as the most noteworthy historical biography of its time. Familiarity with Lincoln's life makes this heavily abridged volume less revelatory, but Sandburg's prose is remarkable, capturing some of the spark of Lincoln's love of language. Here, Lincoln's birth welcomes him ""into a world of battle and blood, of whispering dreams and wistful dust,"" and, a lifetime later, the poet-biographer notes that ""None threw a longer shadow than he."" Many of the images here also make this volume notable. From Lincoln's boyhood cabin to photos of his wife-to-be, from members of his cabinet to those who carried out his orders on battlefields, from the train car that took him to the White House to the one that bore his body, the photographs add an extra layer to our understanding of the man and his time. All in all, an excellent, well-written and concise biography of the president our country still so reveres. Photographs.