Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years

Carl Sandburg

Sterling Publishing Company, 2007 - Biography & Autobiography - 463 pages

Originally published in six volumes, which sold more than one million copies, Carl Sandburg’s Pulitzer Prize winner Abraham Lincoln won praise as the most noteworthy historical biography of his generation. He later distilled his monumental creation into one volume that critics and readers alike consider his greatest work of nonfiction.
Magnificently produced, this special abridged and illustrated edition features foil stamping on the spine, an imitation cloth case, high quality paper, and collaged endpapers in four-color sepia. More than 250 engaging and often rare historical photos, along with descriptive captions, allow readers to visualize Lincoln’s journey from country lawyer to perhaps the most influential and beloved president of the United States. The fascinating pictures—many in color—provide a very intimate glimpse into Lincoln’s world. You’ll see his personal handwritten copy of the Gettysburg address, the gun that tragically ended his life, as well as a variety of rarely-viewed paraphernalia and personal effects. The images come from such notable artists as the esteemed Civil War photographer Matthew Brady, Joseph Boggs Beale, Currier and Ives, and Alexander Gardner.

Contents

• I: 6
• II: 8
• III: 11
• IV: 25
• V: 41
• VI: 49
• VII: 57
• VIII: 63
• IX: 67
• X: 73
• XI: 79
• XII: 83
• XIII: 93
• XIV: 103
• XV: 111
• XVI: 121
• XVII: 127
• XVIII: 131
• XIX: 139
• XX: 147
• XXI: 155
• XXII: 161
• XXIII: 167
• XXV: 177
• XXVI: 183
• XXVII: 197
• XXVIII: 203
• XXIX: 209
• XXX: 215
• XXXI: 219
• XXXII: 225
• XXXIV: 231
• XXXV: 235
• XXXVI: 241
• XXXVII: 247
• XXXVIII: 259
• XXXIX: 263
• XL: 273
• XLI: 277
• XLII: 283
• XLIII: 287
• XLIV: 291
• XLVI: 295
• XLVII: 299
• XLVIII: 303
• XLIX: 309
• L: 315
• LI: 321
• LIII: 327
• LIV: 331
• LV: 335
• LVI: 343
• LVII: 347
• LVIII: 351
• LIX: 357
• LX: 365
• LXI: 369
• LXII: 375
• LXIII: 385
• LXIV: 389
• LXVI: 391
• LXVII: 395
• LXVIII: 411
• LXIX: 431
• LXX: 435
• LXXII: 456
• LXXIII: 457
• LXXIV: 458

About the author

The son of Swedish immigrants, Sandburg was born in Galesburg, Illinois. At age 13 he left school to roam the Midwest; he remained on the road for six years, working as a day laborer. Sandburg served in the Spanish-American War and then, from 1898 to 1902, attended Lombard College in Galesburg. After college, he went to Milwaukee, where he worked as a journalist; he also married Lillian Steichen there in 1908. During World War I, he served as a foreign correspondent in Stockholm; after the war he returned to Chicago and continued to write about America, especially the common people. Sandburg's first poems to gain wide recognition appeared in Poetry magazine in 1914. Two years later he published his Chicago Poems (1916), and Cornhuskers appeared in 1918. Meanwhile, Sandburg set out to become an authority on Abraham Lincoln (see Vol. 3). His exhaustive biography of the president, which took many years to complete, appeared as Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years (2 vols., 1926) and Abraham Lincoln: The War Years (4 vols., 1939), which won a Pulitzer Prize. Sandburg's poetry is untraditional in form. Drawing on Whitman as well as the imagists, its rhymeless and unmetered cadences reflect Midwestern speech, and its diction ranges from strong rhetoric to easygoing slang. Although he often wrote about the uncouth, the muscular, and the primitive, there was a pity and loving kindness that was a primary motive for his poetry. At Sandburg's death, Mark Van Doren, Archibald MacLeish, and President Lyndon Johnson delivered eulogies. In his tribute, President Johnson said that "Carl Sandburg was more than the voice of America, more than the poet of its strength and genius. He was America.... He gave us the truest and most enduring vision of our own greatness." The N.Y. Times described Sandburg as "poet, newspaper man, historian, wandering minstrel, collector of folk songs, spinner of tales for children, [whose] place in American letters is not easily categorized. But it is a niche that he has made uniquely his own." Sandburg was the labor laureate of the United States. Sandburg received the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1951 for his Complete Poems (1950). Among his many other awards were the gold medal for history and biography (1952) from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; the Poetry Society of America's gold medal (1953) for distinguished achievement; and the Boston Arts Festival Award (1955) in recognition of "continuous meritorious contribution to the art of American poetry." In 1959 he traveled under the auspices of the Department of State to the U.S. Trade Fair in Moscow, and to Stockholm, Paris, and London. In 1960 he received a citation from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as a great living American for the "significant and lasting contribution which he has made to American literature." Edward C. Goodman is the General Editor of the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals at Columbia University in New York City. He is the editor of The Forbes Book of Business Quotations.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years; The Illustrated Editions Series
• Author: Carl Sandburg
• Editor: Edward C. Goodman
• Edition: abridged, illustrated
• Publisher: Sterling Publishing Company, 2007
• ISBN: 1402742886, 9781402742880
• Length: 463 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Historical; Biography & Autobiography / Presidents & Heads of State