Carl Sandburg's New 'Lincoln':

...The six volumes are uneven, for the author grew as he wrote them...

...One of the significant occasions on which he completely lost his temper was when Meade spoke publicly of driving the invader from "our soil...

...for those who cannot afford the six volumes, it is an admirable substitute...

...Our Civil War could perhaps more accurately be called the American People's War...

...The first third, The Prairie Years, lacks the firm historical grasp of The War Years...

...it was a conflict of two peoples, each more completely mobilized than any in previous world history...

...Lincoln never forgets he is President of the nation...

...The selection of incident, the massing of detail to give just the emphasis needed, the play of light and shade in the story-the singularly apt use of pithy quotations not only from Lincoln but from thousands of people great and small--all these furnish a portrait so vivid and complete that editorial analysis would be superfluous...

...As the New York Times said when he refused to take sides with either faction in Missouri: "Mr...

...Lincoln's greatness, of course, lay largely in his power to interpret the sentiments and aims of the people in their better moods, to appeal to their reason and their deep-seated heroism and magnanimity by his own reasonableness, courage and charity...

...And Carl Sandburg's poetic vision of Lincoln and his role has widened, his understanding of the time has deepened--if only be cause we have all lived through an other tremendous war...

...The book should be distributed across the breadth of the land and kept alive for generations, for it will be a great educator of the people, whom Carl Sandburg, like Lincoln, loves so much...

...Its first volumes, moreover, appeared nearly thirty years ago, its last volumes fifteen years ago: since their publication, there have been important accretions to our knowledge of Lincol--the most important coming from the practically definitive eight-volume edition of Lincoln's Collected Works, so admirably edited by Roy Basler...

...We perceive, as chapter follows chapter, that here is a book written not out of a pile of notes, but from a mind saturated with the lore of Lincoln's era and an imagination alive with comprehension of the people of both North and South...

...For those who own the larger work, it is an indispensable supplement...

...to Lincoln, every inch of America, North or South, was our soil...

...The author can well leave to Beveridge the rigorous criticism of men and events, to James G. Randall the careful analysis of forces...

...It was a daring experiment, but it justifies itself...

...But that the work as a whole is one of the true classics of American biography, a book for the ages no discriminating reader has ever doubted...

...Its 80,000 words of new material will command the attention of all Lincoln-lovers...

...His bio graphical method at first blush seem simplicity itself--a steady narrative and descriptive flow, never pausing for analysis or comment...

...Carl Sandburg is that rare phenomenon, an artist-scholar...

...many more present the masses with Lincoln somehow in the foreground...

...If not so impressive as the great six-volume work, or so encyclopedic in its coverage of events, it draws compensating virtues from its comparative brevity: for the greater work did have a certain discursiveness, while here every stroke, every fact tells in the final impression...

...Always the people--for if some chapters are almost purely personal...

...It is a fascinating book in its warmth, its drama, its strong narrative head...

...It is a good descriptivie phrase, though it leaves much untold In a sense, Sandburg's work is a long prose-poem of American democracy in its most poignant crisis, with Lincoln as protagonist...

...Professor of American History, Columbia University PANORAMA through minutiae is what Benjamin P. Thomas called Carl Sandburg's six-volume life of Lincoln...

...For several reasons Carl Sandburg's instinct in under-taking this mighty task was sound The very massiveness and cost of the six-volume work have kept it from lens of thousands of potential readers...

...But the critical reader sees at once that the most sensitive art lies below the seeming artlessness...

...His own impressionistic picture reflects the spirit of the man and the age...

...So impressive is it that the presentation of the same story in one-volume form might seem a daring experiment...

...Throughout this book, by multitudinous human touches, the author builds up his overshadowing image of a great people in resolution, agony and triumph...

...In another aspect, it is a marvelously complete study of how the people raised Lincoln up to be the highest expression of their hopes, fears, humor and suffering, and the way in which he exercised his arts of leadership...

...What we have now is not a condensation but a new book...