Critical Insights: Abraham Lincoln Reviews
"Evans deserves credit for compiling several recent essays on Abraham Lincoln and literature into this invaluable resource for both general readers and scholars. He presents differing perspectives on this iconic American as a writer, reader, and orator, some of which may be revelations to Lincoln lieges. How many know that Lincoln impacted Ulysses S. Grant’s thinking and writing; that Euclid, the poet Thomas Gray, and Harriet Beecher Stowe influenced his thoughts (although not to the same degree as Shakespeare or the King James Bible); or how African American poets responded to him in their works? Contributors John Channing Briggs, Nicolas Tredell, and Brian Yothers expand on themes such as Lincoln’s identification with his audiences, his evolution on abolition and racial separation, and his mixture of humor and melancholy. Steven Ealey, Jordan Bailey, and Steve Ellerhoff note Lincoln’s lasting legacy with cultural creators such as writer Robert Penn Warren, screenwriter Tony Kushner in the 2012 film Lincoln, and George Saunders in his novel Lincoln in the Bardo (2017). Each essay is followed by a compact works cited list. This compilation, while deliberately not a full-length portrait (many already exist), is a sympathetic reference on a justly esteemed and consequential personage. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels." -- CHOICE