Abraham Lincoln Book Acquisitions for 2017

Another year and another set of acquisitions for my Abraham Lincoln book collection. This was a decent year for new books – 59 new additions. In contrast, last year I only acquired 43 new books, but 2017 was in line with the 59 and 60 books obtained in 2015 and 2014, respectively. My big year was the 98 books in 2013. So this year was about average, but acquisitions didn’t stop at books. I also purchased four new 7-shelf bookcases to set up a new office library.

Basement library

Nine of the new books were published in 2017. By far the most important one was my own book, Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, which came out in August and has been enjoying good sales in Barnes and Noble stores nationwide.Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America

Other 2017 released books include the second volume of Sidney Blumenthal’s “Political Life of Abraham Lincoln” called Wrestling With His Angel (which I reviewed in the Lincolnian) and on Goodreads. There were also new books by Lincoln scholars Brian Dirck, James Conroy, Guy Fraker, and Jonathan W. White.

Two books looked at the importance of legendary photographers Alexander Gardner and Mathew Brady to our memory of the Civil War. Shooting Lincoln by J.C. Pistor came out this year while Richard Lowry’s The Photographer and the President came out in 2015. Both delve into the rivalry between Gardner and Brady and their relationship with helping make Lincoln great as well as document the destruction of the war.

On the flip-side, the oldest new acquisition was Henry Ketcham’s The Life of Abraham Lincoln, published in 1901. Close behind was Emanuel Hertz’s 1939 book, Lincoln Talks: A Biography in Anecdote.

Other great books include Charles Strozier’s Your Friend Forever: The Enduring Friendship of Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed, and the four-volume set of Legal Documents and Cases coming out of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln Project, edited by Daniel Stowell. I was also fascinated by Robert O’Harrow Jr.’s The Quartermaster about Montgomery C. Meigs.

As Vice President of Programs for the Lincoln Group of DC, I’ve had the privilege of inviting many of these authors to speak to us in person. Between the Lincoln Group, the Lincoln Forum, and other Lincoln organization events I’ve been lucky enough to get many of my acquisitions signed by the authors. Sixteen of my new acquisitions are signed, most directly to me.

I will admit that finding books is getting harder. New books tend to be expensive and older books tend to be either impossible to find or in terrible condition or priced out of my reach. With over 1100 titles in my collection, the number of books available that I already have also puts a cap on new acquisitions.

One last note: I’ve begun something I call the Abraham Lincoln Bibliography Project in which I plan to catalog the known books about Abraham Lincoln. I’ll include only actual books, not other documents and not pamphlets. As the website develops I’ll add a searchable database, book reviews, lists of books by topic (e.g., assassination, general biography, law career), and summary papers for those topics. The idea is to create a useful resource for both Lincoln researchers and the general public. Check out the blog and stay tuned.

See the 2017 list showing author/title/publication date below my signature blurb below.

David J. Kent is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, now available. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (both Fall River Press). He has also written two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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Here is the 2017 list:

Physical Evidences: Investigation & Reconstruction of Physical Events 2017
Acord, David What Would Lincoln Do? 2009
Adams, Carl Nance: Trials of the First Slave Freed by Abraham Lincoln 2016
Bain, David Haward Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad 1999
Bartelt, William E. There I Grew Up: Remembering Abraham Lincoln’s Indiana Youth 2008
Berton, Pierre Niagara: A History of the Falls 1992
Blumenthal, Sidney Wrestling With His Angel: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln 1849-1856 2017
Brame, Charles w/illustrations by Soller, Edgar B. Honestly Abe: A Cartoon Expose of Abraham Lincoln (Revised and Enlarged Edition) 2000
Brogan, D.W. Abraham Lincoln (Great Lives) 1935
Chadwick, Bruce 1858: Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, and the War They Failed to See 2008
Conroy, James B. Lincoln’s White House: The People’s House in Wartime 2017
Cornelius, James M. and Carla Knorowski Under Lincoln’s Hat: 100 Objects That Tell The Story of His Life and Legacy 2016
Cox, Hank H. Lincoln and the Sioux Uprising of 1862 2005
Crofts, Daniel W. Lincoln & the Politics of Slavery: The Other Thirteenth Amendment and the Struggle to Save the Union 2016
Davis, Rodney O., and Wilson, Douglas, L. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (The Lincoln Studies Center Edition) 2008
Denney, Robert E. Civil War Medicine: Care & Comfort of the Wounded 1994
Dirck, Brian Lincoln in Indiana 2017
Farber, Daniel Lincoln’s Constitution 2003
Foner, Eric Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 1988
Fraker, Guy C. Looking for Lincoln in Illinois: A Guide to Lincoln’s Eighth Judicial Circuit 2017
Furguson, Ernest B. Freedom Rising: Washington in the Civil War 2004
Grieve, Victoria Ford’s Theatre and the Lincoln Assassination 2005
Hacker, Barton C. (Ed.) Astride Two Worlds: Technology and the American Civil War 2016
Hertz, Emanuel Lincoln Talks: A Biography in Anecdote 1939
Hirsch, David and Van Haften, Dan The Ultimate Guide to the Gettysburg Address 2016
Irmscher, Christoph Louise Agassiz: Creator of American Science 2013
Keeler, William Frederick, with Robert W. Daly (Editor) Aboard the USS Monitor: 1862: The Letters of Acting Paymaster William Frederick Keeler, US Navy to His Wife, Anna 1964
Kent, David Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America 2017
Ketcham, Henry The Life of Abraham Lincoln 1901
Kigel, Richard Becoming Abraham Lincoln: The Coming of Age of Our Greatest President 2017
Lee, Richard M. Mr. Lincoln’s City: An Illustrated Guide to the Civil War Sites of Washington 1981
Leidner, Gordon Conversations with Lincoln: Little-Known Stories From Those Who Met America’s 16th President 2016
Lowry, Richard S. The Photographer and the President: Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Gardner, & the Images That Made a Presidency 2015
Martin, Fred J., Jr. Abraham Lincoln’s Path to Reelection in 1864: Our Greatest Victory 2013
McCutcheon, Marc The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in the 1800s 1993
Oehlerts, Donald E. (Compiler) Guide to Wisconsin Newspapers, 1833-1957 1958
O’Harrow, Robert Jr. The Quartermaster: Montgomery C. Meigs, Lincoln’s General, Master Builder of the Union Army 2016
Paludan, Phillip Shaw Victims: A True Story of the Civil War 1981
Phillips, Donald T. Lincoln on Leadership for Today 2017
Pinkney, Andrea Davis Dear Mr. President: Abraham Lincoln Letters from a Slave Girl 2001
Pistor, J.C. Shooting Lincoln: Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, and the Race to Photograph the Story of the Century 2017
Schwartz, Thomas F. Lincoln: An Illustrated Life and Legacy 2009
Searcher, Victor Lincoln Today: An Introduction to Modern Lincolniania 1969
Silverman, Kenneth Lightning Man: The Accursed Life of Samuel F.B. Morse 2003
Sloan, Eric A Museum of Early American Tools 1973
Snow, Richard Iron Dawn: The Monitor, the Merrimack, and the Civil War Sea Battle That Changed History 2016
Stowell, Daniel (Editor) The Papers of Abraham Lincoln: Legal Documents and Cases (4 vols) 2008
Strozier, Charles B. Your Friend Forever, A. Lincoln: The Enduring Friendship of Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed 2016
Stuckey, Sterling Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory & The Foundations of Black America 1987
Swanson, James L. and Weinberg, Daniel R. Lincoln’s Assassins: Their Trial and Execution 2001
Titone, Nora My Thoughts Be Bloody: The Bitter Rivalry That Led to the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln 2010
Tooley, Mark The Peace That Almost Was: The Forgotten Story of the 1861 Washington Peace Conference and the Final Attempt to Avert the Civil War 2015
Trindal, Elizabeth Steger Mary Surratt: An American Tragedy 1996
Tyler, David B. The Wilkes Expedition: The First United Sates Exploring Expedition (1838-1842) 1968
Varhola, Michael J. Everyday Life During the Civil War: A Guide for Writers, Students and Historians 1999
Ward, Geoffrey C. Lincoln’s Thought and the Present 1978
White, Jonathan W. Abraham Lincoln and Treason in the Civil War: The Trials of John Merryman 2011
White, Jonathan W. Midnight in America: Darkness, Sleep, and Dreams During the Civil War 2017
White, Richard Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America 2011