Putnam’s first novel and series launch, These Honored Dead, features Springfield, Ill., merchant Joshua Speed and a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln.

How is your Lincoln different from the popular conceptions of him?

People tend to have a very fixed idea of Lincoln, and it is focused on the man as he was as president, at the end of his life. I asked myself, what would it have been like to know Lincoln before he was “Lincoln”? There are no known pictures of Lincoln until about 1846, when he was 37, so as a literal matter we have trouble picturing the young Lincoln. In real life, as in my opening chapter, he shows up in Springfield in April 1837 with his worldly possessions in a few saddlebags and unable to afford $17 worth of bedding. He was still being formed when he met Speed—he was on his fourth or fifth profession, and he was unmarried. Compared to his contemporaries, he was a “slow starter,” to use our modern vernacular.

What was lawyer Lincoln like?

It is generally said that he was wise, patient, knew how to pick his battles, conceded points that were against him, and argued only what he needed to win his case. He is reputed to have turned away paying clients whom he thought had losing positions, though I’m personally skeptical that he did this too often. He kept careful financial records of his law practice and clearly viewed it as a business. He often represented his friends (including Speed) in their business disputes. He handled some criminal cases, including a number of murder trials, but it’s fair to say that the cases he handles in my series will probably not be particularly representative of the mix of cases he handled in real life. I’m not sure there’s a big readership for a 90,000-word novel about a case for the collection of a bad business note.

What was he like as a trial lawyer?

There are excellent historical records regarding the written pleadings and briefs Lincoln filed in his career, but almost no records of his oral advocacy during trial, because court reporters didn’t exist then as they do today. So there’s essentially no direct record of how he actually argued points to the judge while in court, examined witnesses, or the like.

What about this part of his life might most surprise readers?

That he was not a crusader for civil rights or the common man as a lawyer. He handled mostly business cases, often represented railroads, and famously, in a few cases, represented slave-owners seeking to keep their slaves in bondage.—