Books of Knowledge

Subrosa7 says:

I have become very skeptical of “historical” works that are written today as they are biased and authors tend to change history or ignore it. I have read several books that are from my grandfather’s library (150+ books) on Lincoln and there is a greater influence of the Bible than discussed in this book. For example, “Just as he was without the opportunity of regular attendance up the day-school, so he was also without the opportunity of attendance upon Sunday-school and upon church and Bible class. And yet there was no book to which he devoted so much time, study, analysis and application of its great truths as he did to the Bible. As Herndon (his former law partner) has well said: “This book was nearly always at his elbow.” – The Voice of Lincoln, New York Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1920

This is a secular progressive trying to skew a historical president into liberal agenda. Sorry, he didn’t think like you and Lincoln didn’t “probably regarded John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” in secular terms as a parable about upward mobility that resonated with his own efforts “to find a path out of the limitations of his father’s world” of manual labor.” Hogwash!

The thing is he was an avid reader Bible. He had problem with organized religion and the Churches of the day. He was not Godless, secular progressive liberal. It is just not so. Here is a quote from Lincoln in an interview in 1860 with Newton Batman, superintendant of public instruction of Illinois.

“Here we have twenty-three ministers of different denominations, and all of them are against me but three; and here are a great many prominent members of the churches, a very large majority of whom are against me. Mr. Bateman, I am not a Christian — God knows I would be one — but I have carefully read the Bible, and do not so understand this book”; (and he drew from his bosom a pocket New Testament). “These men well know, ” he continued, “that I am for freedom in the territories, freedom in the territories, freedom everywhere as far as the Constitution and laws weill permit, and that my opponents are for slavery. They know this, and yet, with this book in their hands, in the light of which human bondage cannot live a moment, they are going to vote against me. I do not understand it at all.”

Here Mr. Lincoln paused — paused for long minutes, his features surcharged with emotion. Then he rose and walked up and down the room in the effort to retain or regain his self-possession. Stopping at last, he said, with a trembling voice and his cheeks wet with tears: ” I see the storm coming, and I know that His hand is in it. If he has a place and work for me — and I think He has — I believe I am ready. I am nothing, but truth is everything. I know I am right because I know that liberty is right, for Christ teaches it, and Christ is God. I have told them that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and Christ and reason say the same; and they will find it so. Douglas don’t care whether slavery is voted up or voted down, but God cares, and humanity cares, and I care; and with God’s help I shall not fail. I may not see the end; but it will come, and I shall be vindicated; and these men will find that they have not read their Bibles aright.”

Sounds to me he had a strong understanding of the Bible and a personal relationship with this God.

Subrosa7

Rating: 2 / 5

Alton Ryder says:

This book is hard to put down, especially the last half or so.

The first part I often skimmed. Perhaps the author had read so much original material he had adopted the style of its writing. The last half had so much material new to me that I had to read it slowly as if studying for an exam.

I had not know that Lincoln was a poet, both explicitly and, in his style of writing prose, implicitly. Kaplan illustrates this on pages 302, 303 where he quotes prose and then rearranges the text in stanza form.
Rating: 5 / 5

James D. Miller says:

Lincoln: Biography of a Writer

By Fred Kaplan

Though many people may not think of Abraham Lincoln as an author, an author he was. Abraham Lincoln made his living with words which he himself wrote. Lincoln is in fact one of the most quoted American writers. So did you ever wonder how did Lincoln, with only about six months of what we would consider “formal education,” become one of America’s greatest wordsmiths? If you have, then you are not alone.

In this day of book tours and book signings many authors are often asked by their adoring fans for advice on writing, on getting an agent or how to get published. In some instances writers are asked about how they write, or where, or when. In many cases, these are the public’s not so subtly veiled attempts at asking the one question that they really want to ask . . . “How does one become a writer?”

Authors, when asked for advice by want-to-be writers, generally give two standard pieces of guidance. The first, a similar answer to the question “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” is to put your butt in a chair, every day, and write, in essence: “Practice, practice, practice.” The second bit of sage wisdom passed along by authors is “Writers read. Read. Read everything.”

It has been two hundred years since the birth of Abraham Lincoln, and one-hundred forty-four since his death. It is obviously not possible to ask Lincoln how he became a writer, but in his book “Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer,” Fred Kaplan attempts to answer the question by extrapolating how Lincoln may have been influenced by what he read.

I have to admit, before I began reading Mr. Kaplan’s book, I was convinced this was going to be a fairly dull and dry read, but once I opened the book and began to read, as with almost every other book about Lincoln, I was thoroughly engaged.

Starting in Lincoln’s youth and the school books Lincoln had, Kaplan traces Lincoln’s growth as a reader superimposed over Lincoln’s writings throughout his life. Lincoln read the Bible, both old and new testaments, and was very fond of Byron, Burns and Shakespeare. Lincoln could quote large segments of texts from each by memory. Though some evidence Mr. Kaplan uses is circumstantial and his conclusions are sometimes speculative.

There are three things that most bothered me about Mr. Kaplan’s tome. The first is his over use of the word “autodidact.” He uses the word so repetitively that the word draws attention to itself and takes away from Mr. Kaplan’s narrative. I would have thought an editor may have caught that and suggested other phrases such as “self-taught” or “self-educated.”

The second is almost the complete absence of Lincoln’s writings as President. Some of his most well known speeches, and writings, such as the Gettysburg Address, his first and second inaugural addresses and the Emancipation Proclamation are barely mentioned if at all, while other writings of Lincoln’s earlier career are examined under Kaplan’s magnifying glass.

And the third is the absence of a bibliography. Mr. Kaplan has written a book detailing how Abraham Lincoln’s growth as a writer by exploring the books he read. Mr. Kaplan’s tome, then would have been enhanced by including a bibliography of, at the very least, what Lincoln is known to have read, and also other books he may have had access to (the circumstantial evidence & speculative conclusions earlier alluded to), and what sources Mr. Kaplan himself used.

Having said that however, “Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer,” is well written and researched. Mr. Kaplan writes in an easily read style, and his book covers ground seldom or briefly covered in other Lincoln biographies, and therefore adds to our knowledge of our sixteenth president.
Rating: 4 / 5