"The Lincoln Anthology brings together for the first time 110 insightful and imaginative selections by a diverse array of 95 writers from William Cullen Bryant to E. L. Doctorow. Here is a composite portrait of our greatest president told by the journalists, biographers, satirists, essayists, novelists, clergymen, poets, play-wrights, historians, memoirists, and statesmen who have shaped our understanding of Lincoln and his complex and crucial legacy over the last 150 years." "The collection includes fascinating firsthand observations by Emerson and Hawthorne, satirical sketches by Artemus Ward and Petroleum V. Nasby, and surprising contemporary commentary by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Karl Marx, George Templeton Strong, and Horace Greeley. Moving eulogies by Henry Ward Beecher and George Bancroft join poetic tributes from James Russell Lowell, Henrik Ibsen, and Walt Whitman. Dramatically contrasting views of Lincoln are provided by his presidential secretaries, John G. Nicolay and John Hay, and his law partner, William H. Herndon. Lincoln's views and deeds on race and emancipation are examined by Frederick Douglass with keen critical candor, while his democratic virtues are extolled by Whitman in luminous prose."--BOOK JACKET.