New Lincoln books!

We're proud to announce a number of great Lincoln titles, including two new additions to the Concise Lincoln Library. These books look beyond his presidency, and instead focus on his early career, his family, and his legacy.


Lincoln as Hero
by Frank J. Williams
Cloth: 978-0-8093-3217-5
Ebook: 978-0-8093-3218-2
$19.95t, 144 pages, 5 x 8

“From a lifetime of studying Abraham Lincoln, Frank Williams has distilled an analysis of the qualities of courage and leadership that marked America’s sixteenth president as a genuine hero. This book offers a sensitive appreciation of Lincoln’s character.”—James McPherson, author of Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief

Lincoln as Hero shows how—whether it was as president, lawyer, or schoolboy—Lincoln extolled the foundational virtues of American society.  Using both celebrated episodes and lesser-known anecdotes from Lincoln’s life and achievements, Williams presents a wide-ranging analysis of these traits as they were demonstrated in Lincoln’s rise, starting with his self-education as a young man and moving on to his training and experience as a lawyer, his entry onto the political stage, and his burgeoning grasp of military tactics and leadership. 

Touching on Lincoln’s humor and his quest for independence, justice, and equality, Williams outlines the path Lincoln took to becoming a great leader and an American hero, showing readers why his heroism is still relevant. True heroes, Williams argues, are successful not just by the standards of their own time but also through achievements that transcend their own eras and resonate throughout history—with their words and actions living on in our minds, if we are imaginative, and in our actions, if we are wise.  

Frank J. Williams, retired chief justice of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island and a well-known expert on Abraham Lincoln, is the founding chair of the Lincoln Forum and a board member of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation. He is the author or editor of more than a dozen books, including Judging Lincoln, The Emancipation Proclamation: Three Views, and Lincoln Lessons: Reflections on America’s Greatest Leader. 

Lincoln and Medicine
by Glenna Schroeder- Lein
Cloth: 978-0-8093-3194-9
Ebook: 978-0-8093-3195-6
$19.95t, 152 pages, 5 x 8, 4 illus.

"Dr. Schroeder-Lein has scored another ace with Lincoln and Medicine…. A must for any Lincolnite and those interested in nineteenth-century medicine.” —Peter J. D’Onofrio, president of the Society of Civil War Surgeons

Since his assassination in 1865, Lincoln has been diagnosed with no less than seventeen conditions by doctors, historians, and researchers, including congestive heart failure, epilepsy, Marfan syndrome, and mercury poisoning.  Interest in Lincoln’s physical and mental health continues to be piqued, from the recent interest in testing Lincoln’s DNA and theories that he was homosexual, to analysis of the deep depressions, accidents, and illnesses that plagued his early years.

Lincoln and Medicine, the first work on the subject in nearly eighty years, investigates the most enduring controversies about Lincoln’s mental health, physical history, and assassination; the conditions that afflicted his wife and children, both before and after his death; and Lincoln’s relationship with the medical field during the Civil War, both as commander-in-chief and on a personal level. Set within the broader context of the prevailing medical knowledge and remedies of the era, this book takes into account new perspectives on the medical history of Abraham Lincoln and his family, offering an absorbing and informative view into a much-mythologized, yet underinvestigated, dimension of one of the nation’s most famous leaders.

Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein is manuscripts librarian for the non-Lincoln manuscripts at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois. Her previous publications include The Encyclopedia of Civil War Medicine, Confederate Hospitals on the Move: Samuel H. Stout and the Army of Tennessee, and Andrew Johnson: A Biographical Companion (with Richard Zuczek).

 Lincoln's Ladder to the Presidency: The Eighth Judicial Circuit
By Guy C. Fraker, with a foreword by Michael Burlingame
Cloth: 978-0-8093-3201-4
Ebook: 978-0-8093-3202-1
$34.95t, 352 pages, 5 x 8, 34 illus.

“As a central Illinois lawyer himself, Fraker knows the Eighth Judicial Circuit better than anyone. As a Lincoln scholar, he has an eye for the revealing legal story and an ear for the interplay of Lincoln’s legal and political ideas and language.”—Ronald C. White Jr., author of A. Lincoln: A Biography
Throughout his twenty-three-year legal career, Abraham Lincoln spent nearly as much time on the road as an attorney for the Eighth Judicial Circuit as he did in his hometown of Springfield, Illinois. Yet most historians gloss over this time and instead have Lincoln emerge fully formed as a skillful politician in 1858. In this innovative volume, Guy C. Fraker provides the first-ever study of Lincoln’s professional and personal home away from home and demonstrates how the Eighth Judicial Circuit and its people propelled Lincoln to the presidency.

 The Eighth Judicial Circuit provided the perfect setting for the growth and ascension of Lincoln. A complete portrait of the sixteenth president depends on a full understanding of his experience on the circuit, and Lincoln’s Ladder to the Presidency provides that understanding, as well as a fresh perspective on the much-studied figure, thus deepening our understanding of the roots of his political influence and acumen.

Guy C. Fraker, an attorney in Bloomington, Illinois, has written extensively and lectures frequently on the Eighth Judicial Circuit. He was the consultant on the award-winning PBS documentary Lincoln, Prelude to the Presidency and co-curated “Prologue to the Presidency: Abraham Lincoln on the Illinois Eighth Judicial Circuit,” a traveling exhibit also on permanent display at the David Davis Mansion, a state historic site in Bloomington. He also served as an advisor to the National Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. A graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law, he is a past president of the McLean County Bar Association. Fraker is touring heavily in promotion of this book. His schedule is available at www.lincolnsladder.com.


Lincoln's Forgotten Friend, Leonard Swett
By Robert S. Eckley
Cloth: 978-0-8093-3205-2
Ebook: 978-0-8093-3206-9
$34.95t, 336 pages, 6 x 9, 22 illus.

“This book is a major contribution that shows the lifelong dedication of a friend from Lincoln’s inner circle.”—Dr. Ronald D. Rietveld, professor emeritus, California State University, Fullerton
In 1849, while traveling as an attorney on the Eighth Judicial Circuit in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln befriended Leonard Swett (1825–89), a fellow attorney sixteen years his junior. Despite this age difference, the two men forged an enduring friendship that continued until Lincoln’s assassination in 1865. Until now, no historian has explored Swett’s life or his remarkable relationship with the sixteenth president. In this welcome volume, Robert S. Eckley provides the first biography of Swett, crafting an intimate portrait of his experiences as a loyal member of Lincoln’s inner circle.
Throughout his life, Swett wrote a great deal on Lincoln, and he planned to write a biography about him during his retirement. Swett’s death preempted this project, but his eloquent and interesting writings about Lincoln are described and reproduced in this volume, some for the first time.

With Lincoln’s Forgotten Friend, Eckley brings Swett forth from the shadows of history and sheds new light on Lincoln’s personal relationships and their contributions to his career.

A native of central Illinois, Robert Eckley earned a doctorate in economics from Harvard. He was the president of Illinois Wesleyan University from 1968 to 1986. He served as president of the Abraham Lincoln Association from 2002 to 2004 and was honored with their Logan Hay Medal in 2007. He published a series of articles on Leonard Swett in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society.