Collecting Abraham Lincoln Books – A Never Ending Joy

Over the years I’ve collected hundreds of books about Abraham Lincoln, though with thousands of books written about him I have a long way to go before I run out of options.  Having the money to collect more and the shelf space to store more, well, those are different questions altogether.  As of this writing (5/25/12) I have 644 titles in my collection. However, a title could be multiple volumes. For example, my 10-volume set of Nicolay and Hay’s “Abraham Lincoln: A History” published in 1890 counts only as one “title.”

Some quick numbers:

111    =     Number of books signed by the author (many directly to me)

273    =    Number of confirmed first editions

80      =    Number of first editions that are signed by the author

62      =    Number of books that have pre-1900 copyright dates

1834  =    Oldest copyright date in my collection

Of course, others have a bigger collection than I do.  Recently the Ford’s Theatre Center for Education and Leadership unveiled its 34-foot tower of Lincoln books.  While the tower repeats 205 actual titles, it holds about 6,800 books – a fraction of the estimated 15,000 books written about Lincoln.

Clearly I need to step up the pace of my book collecting.

Check out my Abraham Lincoln page.

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