Booknotes: Herndon on Lincoln

New Arrival:
• Herndon on Lincoln: Letters by William H. Herndon, edited by Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis (Univ of Ill Pr, 2016).

The University of Illinois Press's The Knox College Lincoln Studies Center Series has produced some important works, most recently the Gienapp edition of the Gideon Welles diary. A decade ago, they also published an edited edition of Herndon's Lincoln. The newest series publication is Herndon on Lincoln. "In this new volume, Wilson and Davis have produced a comprehensive edition of what Herndon himself wrote about Lincoln in his own letters. Because of Herndon's close association with Lincoln, his intimate acquaintance with his partner's legal and political careers, and because he sought out informants who knew Lincoln and preserved information that might otherwise have been lost, his letters have become an indispensable resource for Lincoln biography. Unfiltered by a collaborator and rendered in Herndon's own distinctive voice, these letters constitute a matchless trove of primary source material." Editors Wilson and Davis contribute a lengthy introduction as well as footnotes and an index.