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by: Gore Vidal
List Price: $16.95Amazon.com's Price: $11.53 You Save: $5.42 (32%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780375708763
ISBN: 0375708766
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 672
Publication Date: February 15, 2000
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: February 15, 2000
Sales Rank: 24192
Studio: Vintage
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series spans the history of the United States from the Revolution to the post-World War II years. With their broad canvas and large cast of fictional and historical characters, the novels in this series present a panorama of the American political and imperial experience as interpreted by one of its most worldly, knowing, and ironic observers.
To most Americans, Abraham Lincoln is a monolithic figure, the Great Emancipator and Savior of the Union, beloved by all. In Gore Vidal's Lincoln we meet Lincoln the man and Lincoln the political animal, the president who entered a besieged capital where most of the population supported the South and where even those favoring the Union had serious doubts that the man from Illinois could save it. Far from steadfast in his abhorrence of slavery, Lincoln agonizes over the best course of action and comes to his great decision only when all else seems to fail. As the Civil War ravages his nation, Lincoln must face deep personal turmoil, the loss of his dearest son, and the harangues of a wife seen as a traitor for her Southern connections. Brilliantly conceived, masterfully executed, Gore Vidal's Lincoln allows the man to breathe again.
Amazon.com Review:
Lincoln is a masterwork of historical fiction, in which Gore Vidal combines a comprehensive knowledge of Civil War America with 20th-century literary technique, probing the minds and motives of the men surrounding Abraham Lincoln, including personal secretary John Hay and scheming cabinet members William Seward and Salmon P. Chase, as well as his wife, Mary Todd. It is a book monumental in scope that never loses sight of the intimate and personal in its depiction of the power struggles that accompanied Lincoln's efforts to preserve the Union at all costs--efforts in which the eradication of slavery was far from the president's main objective. As usual, there's plenty of room for Vidal's wickedly humorous deflation of American icons, including a comic interlude in a Washington bordello in which Lincoln's former law partner informs Hay that Lincoln had contracted syphilis as a young man and had, just before marrying Mary Todd, suffered what can only be described as a nervous breakdown. (Protestors should note that Vidal is only passing along what that former partner had written in his own biography of Lincoln.) Don't be intimidated by the size of Lincoln; if you like historical fiction, you should read this book at the first opportunity. --Ron Hogan
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Gore Vidal: Lincoln A Novel
Extremely well written and researched book of the events of Lincoln's life in the White House during the Civil War. Great book for the collector, almost makes you feel that you are a part of history itself!!
Rating:  - Lincoln, Warts and All
This first paragraph below has been used previously to introduce author Gore Vidal's' output of other interesting historical novels (that, however, unlike many such efforts in this genre when necessary hew pretty close to the historical record- hence their value).
Listen up! As a general proposition I like my history straight up- facts, footnotes and all. There is enough work just keeping up with that work so that historical novels don't generally get a lot of my attention. In this ... Read More
Rating: - Ambitious
I'd like to give this book 5 stars for the extraordinary undertaking of thought and research that it represents, but the book, while very good, is weakened by its ambition and its reliance on dialog.
I think Vidal developed insight into many of the players (Lincoln, Mary, Salmon Chase, Kate Chase, Sprague, Stanton, Seward, David, Hay...) and wanted to sketch a portrait of each one of them. This detracted from his most interesting portrait, that of Lincoln.
The characters ... Read More
Rating: - Historical Fiction at Its Finest
Gore Vidal's 'Lincoln' immerses the reader in Civil War Washington with rich detail. Vidal introduces few fictional characters and hews close to the known historical record in brilliantly recreating actions and conversations. Lincoln emerges as a master political strategist who invites his chief adversaries into his Administration and then lulls them into thinking they and not he are the real powers. By the time Lincoln acheives near complete power, Chase and Seward are unsure just how it happened.
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Rating: - bravo!
Mr. Vidal has written an elegant story about one of the most troubling times in our nations history. As seen through the eyes of our greatest president, his cabinet and the people around him this book pulls you in and grabs you by the coattails. What is actual fact and what comes from Mr Vidals imagination? Every action, every word seems authentic and keeping in line with what we expect from the characters. A beautiful book, you feel as if you are right there seeing for yourself firsthand, the birth of ... Read More
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