Abraham Lincoln: Defender of Freedom by Holzer, Harold (ed.) - 2012

Newburgh, NY: Thornwillow Press, 2012. Reproduced photographs and manuscripts of and by Lincoln as frontispiece and interspersed throughout. These provide impressive referential punctuation to the documents here assembled by Harold Holzer, who has addressed both the range of Lincoln's life and his astonishing legacy of belief in the United States' capacity for opportunity and justice. They begin with Lincoln's "Notes in a Copy Book" made from 1824 to 1826, in which Lincoln expounds on his desire for a truly representational republic. As a conclusion, Holzer has selected Lincoln's famed condolence letter to Mrs. Bixby, who lost all five of her sons in the Civil War, and his Second Inaugural Address. In pairing these two documents at the close, Holzer presents Lincoln as he was, both as man and as president, as humble and as hopeful. The reader, ultimately, is left likewise humbled and hopeful at the ideals, actions, and humanity of one of the United States' most influential leaders.

Small quarto. (200)pp. One of 250 copies, signed by Holzer at the half-title and the printer, Luke Ives Pontifell, at the colophon. Bound in half black morocco with paste paper over boards and as endpapers. Decoration in blind. Spine label in gilt against blue leather. Fine in drop-back box.