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CONVERSATIONS WITH LINCOLN by Charles M. - Ed. Segal

CONVERSATIONS WITH LINCOLN

By

Pub Date: Oct. 9th, 1961
Publisher: Putnam

Professor David Donald of Princeton University in his excellent introduction indicates the importance of that rare thing- new material about Lincoln which in this case also provides a ""fresh recreation of Lincoln's very thought and voice"". In some 125 interviews, chosen with care, all kinds of people (politicians, writers, military men, diplomates, mail contractors, business men, etc., etc.) remember Lincoln and his conversations with them (their memory- in many cases- is only a variably correct register). Still they provide an often intimate exposure of the man in many moods from irritation and exasperation to jest, from humility about his own capacities to faith in some greater guidance, and certainly his awareness of the whim of destiny- or what Donald calls the ""compulsion from outside force"", filters through many of the interviews in which Lincoln is forced to deal with immediate or more far-reaching events. The editor has provided a setting and a historical orientation for each of the remembered conversations, and arranged them chronologically. It provides a composite portrait which will have an enduring value particularly for reference.