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?