Following the success of Lloyd Lewis and his "Myths after Lincoln" (1929), the present author was disposed to follow this avenue of speculation and discovery. Born and educated in the South, one might expect natural bias, but the reader is soon freed of such forebodings. Basler carries Lincoln's ghost through a maze of biography, literature, folklore, and poetry in an attempt to discover the man and to evaluate him. His conclusions are necessarily alternatives and fair to his subject at all times. This is no mere attempt to debunk, and its wealth of summary will attract the student of Lincoln, although much of it will be familiar to him. Its strongest appeal will be found among the average reader of biography whose acquaintanceship with Lincoln has been derived from pulpit and politics. Basler and other southerners are to be commended for every fair attempt to find the real Lincoln. They may, however, as Lincoln once put it, find that they have "come out the same hole they went in."

Houghton Mifflin Company. Single volume, $3.50 (1935)

Hobbies, October 1935