Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1858 by BEVERIDGE, Albert J - 1928

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1928. Hardcover. Complete 2-volume set. Small 4to. Blue cloth with gilt spine lettering. xxviii, 607pp; vii, 741pp. Tissue-guarded frontispieces, illustrations. Very good. Faint binding edgewear only, else tight and internally fine. A handsome fifth printing of Beveridge's opus -- with superb autograph addition: Tipped opposite the half-title page of the first volume is a Typed Letter Signed from Beveridge, 1p, 8½" X 11", Indianapolis, IN, 3 June 1922. Addressed to Robert Underwood Johnson (1853-1937, writer/editor and diplomat best remembered among Civil War buffs for editing the epic 4-volume "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War"). Very good. Touch of age toning and faint edgewear. On his personal letterhead, the former senator comments about the U.S. Senate primary in Indiana (which he had just won as a Republican) to the just-retired U.S. ambassador to Italy: "Thank you for your courteous letter of congratulations of May 4th. Acknowledgment has been delayed by many engagements and much pressing correspondence...." Signed huge and bold in black ink at the close, followed by a large 4-line postscript: "'Independent democrats,' eh! Fine -- lots of them voted for me & I hope they will in November." They didn't and he lost, never to hold public office again. Beveridge (1862-1927) was a noted Indiana senator (1899-1911) who won the 1920 Pulitzer prize for his 4-volume "Life of John Marshall," but it is for his mammoth biography of Abraham Lincoln that he is best remembered; it was only half finished when he died on 27 April 1927 at age 64 and thus only runs up through the year 1858. A lovely set of this hefty pair, with a great content author letter. MONAGHAN 2999.