"This book examines how Lincoln's rhetoric has been treated in twenty-one Lincoln biographies, from 1872 to 2016, and thirty-six rhetorical studies, from 1900 to 2015: five books and thirty-one book chapters or essays published in peer-reviewed journals largely unfamiliar to the general public"--Back cover.

This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.

A historical survey of Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas during the lifetime of Abraham Lincoln, examining people, places, and events which gave color to the world of the nineteenth century.

At turns eloquent and earthy, Abraham Lincoln’s rhetoric played a vital role in his success as a politician and statesman. D. Leigh Henson examines Lincoln’s pre-presidential development as a rhetorician, the purposes and methods behind his speeches and writings, and how the works contributed to his political rise. Lincoln’s close study of the rhetorical process drew on sources that ranged from classical writings to foundational American documents to the speeches of Daniel Webster. As Henson shows, Lincoln applied his learning to combine arguments on historical, legal, and moral grounds with appeals to emotion and his own carefully curated credibility. Henson also explores Lincoln’s use of the elements of structural design to craft coherent arguments that, whatever their varying purposes, used direct and plain language to reach diverse audiences--and laid the groundwork for his rise to the White House. Insightful and revealing, Lincoln’s Rise to Eloquence follows Lincoln from his early career through the years-long clashes with Stephen A. Douglas to trace the future president’s evolution as a communicator and politician.

Lincoln was a complicated man; unassuming but ambitious, honest but wily, humorous but occasionally despondent, spiritual but not religious, and he thought slavery was evil but condoned its legality until late in his life. The author, as narrator, tells of Lincoln’s magnanimity in both victory and defeat, his continual quest for self-improvement, his personal tragedies, and his compassion in the midst of war. However, Lincoln was a pragmatic politician who pushed the Emancipation Proclamation although it did not free many slaves, used patronage to secure votes, and ordered the extraordinary use of Presidential War Powers. His life story is told in a generally chronological series of chapters focused on a time or specific event in Lincoln’s life from his childhood to his time in New Salem on his own, his “adventure in the Law,” his close relationship with friends, his political career, his family, his unlikely rise to become President of the United States, and the monumental decisions he faced during the Civil War. There are over 16,000 books about Lincoln registered with the Library of Congress ranging from those which only extol his virtues (and he had many) to those which attempt to “de-myth” his legacy by exaggerating his faults (and he had a few). The fact is that Lincoln’s life defies simple characterizations. He had opposed President Polk’s “Unconstitutional use of power” during the Mexican War, but Lincoln later assumed War Powers beyond Polk’s or any other previous President. He was known as “Honest Abe” and even political opponents remarked that “his cards were always face-up,” but he once intentionally misled Congress. He agonized over the carnage inflicted on both sides of the War, but continually ordered his Generals to “push the fight” to the Southern armies. To Lincoln, however, these actions were not “transgressions” but strategies necessary to end the War and to achieve his overarching goal, the preservation of the Union. The issues of slavery, secession and the Civil War are discussed to explore the effect of certain events on Lincoln and the life-changing decisions he made. Lincoln’s personal and political philosophy toward slavery evolved over time, but he always believed secession was illegal and must be prohibited. Selected Civil War battles and the Generals who were in command are also presented, but only if there was a direct impact on Lincoln personally or on his management of the War. Mr. Dorris chose to not include a detailed account of the assassination conspiracy against Lincoln or the circumstance of his death, focusing instead on his life and the way he lived it. While every attempt was made to be historically accurate, Mr. Dorris chose to not present a history textbook with every page interrupted by footnotes to prove authenticity. Instead this narrative utilizes verifiable consensus information about Lincoln and it does not attempt to “plow new ground” by either challenging or embellishing Lincoln’s legacy. Mr. Dorris assumes the role of a narrator and simply tells his rendition of the fascinating life story of “Abraham Lincoln - an uncommon, common man.”

Lincoln is the cornerstone of Gore Vidal's fictional American chronicle, which includes Burr, 1876, Washington, D.C., Empire, and Hollywood. It opens early on a frozen winter morning in 1861, when President-elect Abraham Lincoln slips into Washington, flanked by two bodyguards. The future president is in disguise, for there is talk of a plot to murder him. During the next four years there will be numerous plots to murder this man who has sworn to unite a disintegrating nation. Isolated in a ramshackle White House in the center of a proslavery city, Lincoln presides over a fragmenting government as Lee's armies beat at the gates. In this profoundly moving novel, a work of epic proportions and intense human sympathy, Lincoln is observed by his loved ones and his rivals. The cast of characters is almost Dickensian: politicians, generals, White House aides, newspapermen, Northern and Southern conspirators, amiably evil bankers, and a wife slowly going mad. Vidal's portrait of the president is at once intimate and monumental, stark and complex, drawn with the wit, grace, and authority of one of the great historical novelists. With a new Introduction by the author.

From the best-selling author of The Emperor of Ocean Park and New England White, a daring reimagining of one of the most tumultuous moments in our nation’s past Stephen L. Carter’s thrilling new novel takes as its starting point an alternate history: President Abraham Lincoln survives the assassination attempt at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865. Two years later he is charged with overstepping his constitutional authority, both during and after the Civil War, and faces an impeachment trial . . . Twenty-one-year-old Abigail Canner is a young black woman with a degree from Oberlin, a letter of employment from the law firm that has undertaken Lincoln’s defense, and the iron-strong conviction, learned from her late mother, that “whatever limitations society might place on ordinary negroes, they would never apply to her.” And so Abigail embarks on a life that defies the norms of every stratum of Washington society: working side by side with a white clerk, meeting the great and powerful of the nation, including the president himself. But when Lincoln’s lead counsel is found brutally murdered on the eve of the trial, Abigail is plunged into a treacherous web of intrigue and conspiracy reaching the highest levels of the divided government. Here is a vividly imagined work of historical fiction that captures the emotional tenor of post–Civil War America, a brilliantly realized courtroom drama that explores the always contentious question of the nature of presidential authority, and a galvanizing story of political suspense. This eBook edition includes a Reading Group Guide.