Random House balked when historian Michael Burlingame, a professor at Connecticut College, turned in his massive biography of Lincoln at over 2,000 pages. They had to say no to the eminent Lincoln scholar. Burlingame turned to Johns Hopkins University Press and they have produced a regal two volume boxed set ($125.00 hardcover, ISBN 978-0-8018-8993-6) simply entitled Abraham Lincoln: A Life. It might take a lifetime to read such a tome, but the book is getting rave reviews and is selling briskly off the shelves, despite a severe economic downturn. Ingram Book Company, the national wholesaler based in Tennessee, is sold out as I write this. This book is becoming a hot commodity.
Burlingame’s book is billed as the first multi-volume biography of the iconic 16th president in many decades. Publishers Weekly says, "This book supplants [Carl] Sandburg and supersedes all other biographies. Future Lincoln books cannot be written without it, and from no other book can a general reader learn so much about Abraham Lincoln. It is the essential title for the bicentennial."—James L. Swanson. Others have weighed in, including Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of Team of Rivals, “No one in recent history has uncovered more fresh sources than Michael Burlingame. This profound and masterful portrait will be read and studied for years to come." And the publisher itself says, “Published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, this landmark publication establishes Burlingame as the most assiduous Lincoln biographer of recent memory and brings Lincoln alive to modern readers as never before.”
Americans love an anniversary, and so do librarians and the media. 2009 marks 200 years since Lincoln’s birth in Kentucky on February 12, 1809, the basis for President’s Day along with George Washington. So the buzz for this book seems to be just beginning.
No comments:
Post a Comment