Myths After Lincoln

by Lloyd Lewis

Excerpt from Myths After LincolnTO tom peete cross, Professor of Comparative Literature at the University Of Chicago, for the use Of his immense and schol arly information on folk-lore and its examination.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Genres: History, American History

366 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1941

About the author

Lloyd Downs Lewis was a journalist, historian, and major figure in a remarkable world of arts and letters that flourished in Chicago following World War I.

Encyclopedia of Chicago

Reviews

[Michael Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a gift card for my birthday recently for my favorite rare & used bookstore, and this week I finally had the chance to devote a pleasant afternoon to perusing their shelves. I ended up with a short stack of interesting finds, nearly all of them long out of print, the sort of thing you’re never going to find for Kindle. I have a longstanding interest in the Civil War, especially in the more peripheral topics associated with it, so I was pleased to discover this collection of brief historical essays. Lewis was a Chicago journalist and a friend and colleague of Carl Sandburg (who supplies an Introduction to this volume), and while Sandburg was working on Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years, Lewis decided to explore some other aspects of Lincoln’s life and death. The First Edition, which I bought, was published in 1929.

The book divides into three sections: “The Dying God,” with a dozen short chapters about events and people surrounding the assassination, “The American Judas,” which does the same for John Wilkes Booth, and “Altar Smoke,” which investigates the various myths and legends that grew up around Lincoln’s funeral and tomb. The author did considerable research along the way -- including talking to people who had actually been alive at the end of the War. (The book was written only some sixty years after the Lincoln assassination, remember -- about the same distance that we now are from the Kennedy assassination, which happened when I was a college senior.) There’s some very interesting stuff here that should attract anyone involved in 19th century history or American folklore.

[David Bradshaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

heavily influenced by Lost Cause thought

[Andrea M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is for anyone who likes post Civil War trivia and already knows a good bit about the era and the personalities involved. In no way is this book coherently written or factually complete! But that is beside the point. Myths and lore aren't about cohesion or facts. Some of what's in this book is simply wacky, but fascinating nonetheless. I considered it a personal challenge to wade through the crazy in search of what might possibly true. I also spend a good bit of time contemplating how some of the craziness described in this book might have played out contemporaneously. The stuff about Boston Corbett is completely nuts. Wikipedia doesn't do justice to just how crazy Corbett's life story was. If for no other reason, I highly recommend this book for the section on Boston Corbett.