Lincoln for the Ages

Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1960. Hardcover. Foreword by David C. Mearns. Small 4to. Grey cloth, pictorial dust jacket. 519pp. Pictorial endpapers. Near fine/very good. Jacket spine typically spine sunned (mildly), else bright and nice. Tight, handsome first edition of one of the best anthologies of writings about Lincoln by a veritable "Who's Who" of 76 noted Lincoln scholars, historians and writers each of whose facsimile signature follows their entry. This unique copy is a collection unto itself, extra-illlustrated with such a large number of tip-ins from contributors that the outer edge splays slightly. Tipped in facing the facsimile signatures are a wide assortment of Typed Letters Signed (19),Typed Notes Signed (6), simple signatures (6), Typed Documents Signed (4), Autograph Notes Signed (2) --- you name it. Briefly, in order of appearance: David C. Mearns (TNS), Ralph G. Newman (small signed photograph + 2 signatures on separate contributions), Carl Sandburg (unsigned intriguing content pencilled note to himself), Louis A. Warren (TLS), R. Gerald McMurtry (ANS), Philip Van Doren Stern (TDS), Paul M. Angle (TNS), Clyde C. Walton (TDS), Marian D. Pratt (2 signatures), Allan Nevins (TLS), William G. Stratton (TNS), Paul H. Douglas (TLS), Walter Trohan (TLS), Adlai E. Stevenson II (signature), Robert L. Kincaid (TLS), Earl Schenck Miers (TNS), W.A. Swanberg (TLS), Herbert Mitgang (TDS), T. Harry Williams (TLS), Bruce Catton (TLS), Richard B. Harwell (facsimile signature in greeting card), Wayne C. Temple (TLS), John Hope Franklin (signed/inscribed printed Lincoln caricature), Jay Monaghan (TDS), Roy F. Nichols (TLS), Ulysses S. Grant III (TLS), Norman Corwin (TLS), E.B. Long (TLS), Fred Schwengel (TNS), Ralph W. Yarborough (TLS + printed invitation), Frank E. Vandiver (TLS), Carl Haverlin (TLS), Kenneth A, Bernard (TLS), Otto Eisenschiml (TLS), Dore Schary (TNS), Roy P. Basler (TLS), Randle B. Truett (signed/addressed envelope), Arnold F. Gates (signature as WW2 G.I.), C. Percy Powell (ANS), Harry E. and Marion D. Pratt (facsimile signatures in greeting card). Many of these are addressed to the book's editor Ralph G. Newman (1912-98, founder of Chicago's noted Abraham Lincoln Book Shop) or to Arnold F. Gates (1914-93, noted Lincoln scholar) and a handful of other recipients are also present. Dates range from a few in the 1940s to the majority in the 1950s and '60s. In content a few are routine, but most are interesting and meaty, often covering Lincoln and Civil War topics. In condition almost all are near fine, many bearing original folds. Of the "76 Distinguished Americans Tell His Story" that the front jacket panel proclaims, 41 are present in this book (two only in the form of facsimiles). The boldly pencilled anecdote Sandburg wrote to himself in his usual shorthand and Bruce Catton's letter praising Newman's work are two among many great content highlights. A delightful , extraordinary assemblage that would be near impossible to replicate!