Lincoln as a Literary Genius

Introduction by Ted Widmer

The selections in this booklet explore how Lincoln became our most eloquent president by examining the sources and techniques of his unique literary style, its effect on his contemporary audience, and his posthumous influence on the American literary imagination.

Contents

• Harriet Beecher Stowe, "Abraham Lincoln" (1864).
• William H. Herndon & Jesse W. Weik, from Herndon's Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life (1889).
• Jacques Barzun, "Lincoln the Writer" (1959).
• Marianne Moore, "Abraham Lincoln and the Art of the Word" (1961).
• Edmund Wilson, from Patriotic Gore (1962).
• John Dos Passos, "Lincoln and His Almost Chosen People" (1964).

Ted Widmer, is the Beatrice and Julio Mario Santo Domingo Director and Librarian of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University and the author of Martin Van Buren in The American Presidents Series and of Young America: The Flowering of Democracy in New York City. He was director of speechwriting at the National Security Council and a senior advisor to President Clinton from 1997 to 2001.