Abe's Wit And Wisdom

[tootlemonde]

I'm completely out of my depth on this site, but it looks like the ideal spot to find an answer to a question that has bothered me for a couple years now...

As a youth, my parents had a vintage hardbound book in our home titled "The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln" which I read avidly & often, but which unfortunately disappeared before liquidation of their estate. I would like to try and replace it now for my own enjoyment.

I have looked for it online and, while encountering the identical title~ mostly on modern softback print-on-demand examples with the earliest being from the 1920s, which I'm pretty certain is several decades after the example we had ~ I have not been able to locate so much as a single reference for our tome. I do not remember the author (my best guess ~ John Hay ~ is obviously just wishful thinking) or the exact publication date, but am quite sure it was printed toward the end of the 19th C. as opposed to the 20th given the style of the cover artwork. It had a pasted-on sepia photo of Father Abraham on the front board, that fact I do remember vividly.

I am surprised to not be able to find any reference to this exact edition of the book on Google, much less any antiquarian bookseller site like Alibris and hoped to find some assistance in case my memory has failed me in some fashion. Otherwise, I have little, if anything, to add to your excellent board other than the fact that my mother was born in Westfield, NY ~ and in her youth knew the
family of the girl who talked Abe into growing his beard.

Does 'my' edition ring any bells with this membership as to author and earliest publication date?

[L Verge]

I can't be of any help other than to recommend contacting Dan Weinberg at the Abraham Lincoln Book Store in Chicago. I sometimes wonder if there is any book on Mr. Lincoln that has not passed through Dan's hands.

[RJNorton]

Welcome to the forum, Bob. Your post reminded me of something you are definitely not looking for. There is a book titled The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln by Alex Ayres (copyright 1992). IMO that is one of the least reliable Lincoln quote books ever published. Most all misnomers ever attributed to Mr. Lincoln are in that book.

[LincolnMan]

Welcome Bob. You mentioned your mother's connection to Grace Bedell's family- that's awesome! I'm sure you know there is a statue in Westfield depicting the Lincoln-Bedell meeting that occurred. The Bedell letter that you referenced is housed in Detroit's Burton Library- which also has a beautiful statue of Lincoln by sculptor Alphonzo Pelzer.

[Rob Wick]

Bob,

Is it possible you're misremembering the title? Could it have been a book with the words wit or wisdom in it, or some other form of the title?

Good luck!

Best
Rob

[tootlemonde]

(11-16-2013 12:03 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  Bob,

Is it possible you're misremembering the title? Could it have been a book with the words wit or wisdom in it, or some other form of the title?
Rob

Oh heavens, yes! After all, it has been some 40 years since I have held the book in my hands. But with that said, the memory is so very strong, such was the impact the book had with me then. Doubtless some of the 'quotes' were of the Parson Weems-variety, given the Lincoln mythos that was developing back then. But they lodged deep in my psyche, nonetheless.

Hopefully, someone will come along and confirm absence of my senility in this matter....

[Eva Elisabeth]

(11-16-2013 08:52 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  There is a book titled The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln by Alex Ayres (copyright 1992). IMO that is one of the least reliable Lincoln quote books ever published. Most all misnomers ever attributed to Mr. Lincoln are in that book.

Roger, do you perhaps know if this book (first published in 2005) is as unreliable?
   

[RJNorton]

Eva, I do not have that book, but I found where the author says, "Almost all the designated “remarks” should be taken as second-hand, but for the most part I have used those recorded by his personal secretaries or by those witnesses deemed fairly reliable. To help me sort out facts from fiction I have depended on the expertise of a handful of the twentieth- and twenty-first century scholars who most thoroughly know Lincoln’s views and character: Roy Basler, David Herbert Donald, Don E. Fehrenbacher, Harold Holzer, and Paul M. Zall. The source for the majority of the quotations is the Abraham Lincoln Association’s The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln."

Based on that I would think Blaisdell's book would be far superior in accuracy than Ayres' book. Ayres does not give sources for some of the quotes in his book. For some others he simply lists the source as "Attributed." And for certain others he does include a legitimate source. There is no consistency.

Regarding Lincoln's stories, Abe Lincoln Laughing: Humorous Anecdotes from Original Sources by and about Abraham Lincoln edited by Paul M. Zall is among the best researched and most accurate of all books in that category.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thanks, Roger. I was a bit irritated. (One would think an author would attempt to find a unique titel.)