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Cover of Abraham Lincoln by Carl Sandburg

Book · Adult

Abraham Lincoln

The Prairie Years

by Carl Sandburg

1939

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About the book

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: THE PRAIRIE YEARS is the first volume in Carl Sandburg's epic six-volume biography of our 16th president. As Sandburg stated his purpose: "For thirty years and more I have planned to make a certain portrait of Abraham Lincoln. It would sketch the country lawyer and prairie politician who was intimate with the settlers of the neighborhood where I grew up as a boy, and where I heard the talk of men and women who had eaten with Lincoln, given him a bed overnight, heard his jokes and lingo, remembered his silences and his mobile face. "The folk-lore Lincoln, the elusive Lincoln is a challenge for any artist. He has enough lights and shadows and changing tints to call out portraits of him in his Illinois backgrounds and settings -- even if never President."

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