---
product_id: 26983835
title: "Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer – How America's President Used Prose and Persuasion to Build Democracy and Confront Slavery"
brand: "fred kaplan"
price: "A$24"
currency: AUD
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 8
category: "Books"
url: https://www.desertcart.com.au/products/26983835-lincoln-the-biography-of-a-writer-how-americas-president-used
store_origin: AU
region: Australia
---

# Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer – How America's President Used Prose and Persuasion to Build Democracy and Confront Slavery

**Brand:** fred kaplan
**Price:** A$24
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer – How America's President Used Prose and Persuasion to Build Democracy and Confront Slavery by fred kaplan
- **How much does it cost?** A$24 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.com.au](https://www.desertcart.com.au/products/26983835-lincoln-the-biography-of-a-writer-how-americas-president-used)

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## Description

Review
        	
        	
        		
        		
	        		
						
			        		&#x201C;Absorbing.&#x201D; (Leon Wieseltier, The New Republic)&#x201C;Lively. . . . Kaplan does a good job of tracing the young man&#x2019;s reading habits, identifying favorite books and noting their influence on the mature politician. . . . Powerful and convincing. . . . Kaplan is a biographer on a mission.&#x201D; (The Los Angeles Times)
						    	
					    	
						
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        		From the Back Cover
        	
        	
        		
        		
	        		
						
			        		For Abraham Lincoln, whether he was composing love letters, speeches, or legal arguments, words mattered. In Lincoln, acclaimed biographer Fred Kaplan explores the life of America&apos;s sixteenth president through his use of language both as a vehicle to express complex ideas and feelings and as an instrument of persuasion and empowerment. This unique account of Lincoln&apos;s life and career highlights the shortcomings of the modern presidency, reminding us, through Lincoln&apos;s legacy and appreciation for language, that the careful and honest use of words is a necessity for successful democracy.Illuminating and engrossing, Lincoln brilliantly chronicles Abraham Lincoln&apos;s genius with language.
						    	
					    	
						
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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Fills a niche in Lincoln studies
            
*by S***N on October 19, 2014*

I'm a big fan of Lincoln's prose.  I consider him one of the great 19th-century American writers, along with Emerson, Thoreau, and Twain.  I've read other studies, like Wills's Lincoln at Gettysburg, but these analyze specific works and assume Lincoln as an already-formed writer.  Kaplan shows how Lincoln accomplished this.  It seems to me that most of the carps about the work's historical accuracy (when the Emancipation Proclamation occurred, eg -- if I could care less, I would) are beside the point and do NOT engage with Kaplan's thesis.  I found Kaplan's account fascinating and illuminating.  Even Lincoln started from somewhere as a writer and achieved his mastery with a lot of hard work and a mountain of reading and self-education.  Kaplan writes like a recovering academic.  Certain sections fly by, others not so much.  I don't mind academic prose if the thought is interesting, and Kaplan definitely passes that test.  An essential Lincoln book.
  

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ A Self-Made Man and Writer
            
*by R***H on February 24, 2009*

An exploration of the effects of being articulate, well-spoken and obsessed with learning is especially relevant after watching Obama use those three traits to take the presidency. It's the author's point that Lincoln's log cabin story has obscured how impressive a writer and speaker he really was. More importantly, we forget that with the exception of Theodore Roosevelt we've never really had a president before with equal deftness in reading, writing and speaking. Normally they are good at one and abysmal at the others. There's a part in the book where he takes one of Lincoln's speeches and lays it out into a poem. It's just one example but an incredible way to make the book's central point: that Lincoln's understanding of the English language and the power of persuasion were so impressive they we're not even aware that he was using them.
  

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ More on our most written-about president
            
*by M***S on April 9, 2009*

Mr. Kaplan's book begins promisingly, with a speculative, but apparently well-researched, perspective on the books that influenced Lincoln as a student and young man.  He makes an interesting comparison between much of Lincoln's later writing and speaking and works like Dilworth's Speller that were accessible to him as a youth.If the author had stopped there, or had fast-forwarded to Lincoln's writing/oratory when it was in full bloom during his presidential years, the book would have worked well.  But there are many chapters, several of them mired in pedantry, about Lincoln's years as a small-town lawyer and businessman, and about the constant struggle of the auto-didact to rise above his humble past.Since Lincoln is the most written-about president in our history, this is much too much information.  Mr Kaplan has a difficult time staying on task.  His discussion of the Lincolns' marriage is fascinating, but he gives you enough to whet the appetite and then more or less apologizes for getting off-track.Worse than that, his conclusions at the end of the book as to where Lincoln's successors rank in terms of their comparative writing abilities is neither informed nor convincing.  Considering that this book is only two years old, it is remarkable, if not laughable, that he refers to Jimmy Carter as one of the best writers to occupy the Oval Office, while failing to even mention the oratorical abilities, not to mention writing skills, of either John F Kennedy or Ronald Reagan. His blanket statement that "after Roosevelt, less talented speechwriters took over and the president's own language hardly mattered to the process" is simply inaccurate.  Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan all had extensive writing and speaking backgrounds when they entered the presidency and continued to have a major influence on the words they uttered while occupying the Oval Office.All in all, this book has its moments, but the author should have drawn more inspiration from his subject and erred on the side of brevity.
  

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*Product available on Desertcart Australia*
*Store origin: AU*
*Last updated: 2026-02-16*