ABE LINCOLN OF PIGEON CREEK

Homespun quality for this new biography of the young Lincoln, Lincoln of the years from 1816 to 1830, the boyhood in Indiana. Fictionalized biography deeply rooted in historical fact, this presents his family, the mother he worshipped who died in his early childhood, the step-mother he was prepared to hate and grew to love, who saw the potentials behind the crude ungainliness, and did all in her power to develop them, his shiftless father, his sister, and step-sisters and brother, his friends and neighbors, the men who loaned him books and opened new vistas. A good picture of the rough simple life, with flavor of the times in dialect and dialogue. Lincoln, the boy, emerges with the innate strengths, the typical humor, the magnetism, the depth of feeling. His abortive young romance and the heartbreak when the girl marries another man; the slowly developing interest in the law- all this laid groundwork for the man he became....Utterly different type of novel from his earlier and promising Crescent City (S & S -- 1947). Whittlesey is handling this as top fiction for Fall with extensive promotion aids, advertising, and advance trade copies. Good plus sale for younger readers.