"Abe" Lincoln's Anecdotes and Stories

Abraham Lincoln wasn't just the Great Emancipator or the president who held the union together. He was also, by universal contemporary account, the finest storyteller America had ever produced. This collection gathers the anecdotes and tales that made Lincoln a legend in his own lifetime - the wit that could cut through political pomposity, disarm an opponent, or simply make a friend laugh until he cried. These aren't the sanitized speeches or the towering rhetoric. These are the offhand remarks, the homespun parables, the wry observations that reveal the man behind the monument. Spanning politics, law, frontier life, and the absurdities of human nature, these stories showcase a mind that could see through pretense and get to the heart of a matter with a single well-chosen tale. For anyone who thinks they know Lincoln only as marble and monuments, this book offers something precious: the voice of a man who knew that truth could be told with a smile.