Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln

Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln by Wilson, Terry. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780252023286.

Winner of the Abraham Lincoln Institute Book Award More than 600 letters and interviews providing information about Abraham Lincolns prepolitical and prelegal careers are included in this volume, a priceless collection never before available in one place. Women to whom Lincoln proposed marriage, political allies and adversaries, judges and fellow attorneys, longtime comrades, erstwhile friends--all speak out here in words first gathered by William H. Herndon, Lincolns law partner, between 1865 and 1890. Historian David Herbert Donald has called Herndons materials "the basic source for Abraham Lincolns early years." Some of those Herndon questioned were illiterate; others could read but barely write. Completion of this undertaking took the editors to three major collections for the mammoth task of transcribing documents that often were nearly illegible. Invaluable to Lincoln scholars and intriguing to anyone curious about Lincoln and his times, the book includes an introduction, scholarly annotations, a registry of the informants, and a detailed topical index.