Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life, Volume 2 (of 2)

This is Lincoln before the monument. Written by the man who shared his law office for seventeen years, this volume traces Lincoln's journey from struggling Springfield lawyer to thethreshold of the White House. Herndon knew Lincoln in his moods, his failures, his late-night conversations, and his courtroom battles. He shows us a man more complex than history has preserved: melancholy and hilarious, politically ambitious and morally restless, a lawyer who distrusted courts and a politician who distrusted parties. The biography caused outrage when published in 1889 because Herndon refused to sanitize his subject. He included Lincoln's depression, his broken engagement, his earthy humor, his unconventional legal methods. This is not the Lincoln of temples and ten-dollar bills, but the one who walked dusty Illinois roads, argued cases in rural courthouses, and slowly, fitfully, came to believe that a nation might be reformed. More than a century later, it remains the most influential biography of Lincoln ever written, not because it diminishes him, but because it shows how he became himself.