Abraham Lincoln Francis Key Alexander (1 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good Minus. Dust Jacket Condition: No DJ as Issued. Cushings and Bailey (illustrator). 1st Edition. Cushings and Bailey, Baltimore, 1864. Original gilt purple cloth laminate, some laminate now rippled else very good . 1st Edition. In addition to Lincoln, this book contains a facsimile manuscript of the Star Spangled Banner of Francis Scott Key and a fine engraving of Miss Liberty as a frontispiece First edition of this rare, first publication of the definitive version of the Gettysburg Address. Cushings and Bailey, Baltimore, 1864. Lincoln hand wrote his final version of the Gettysburg Address for Autograph Leaves of Our Country's Authors, a work created by a former Union Army officer to benefit fellow soldiers in the Civil War. Alexander Bliss and John Pendleton Kennedy assembled and published the book in 1864 to raise money for the Baltimore Sanitary Fair. They solicited many prominent Americans, including Lincoln, Herman Melville and Edgar Allen Poe, to provide hand-written copies of one of their works. The book published in 1864 contains reproductions of many fascinating works hand-written by the authors, including a first appearance of a work by Melville and a work by Edgar Allen Poe, as well as the final and definitive version of the Gettysburg Address. There are five copies of the Gettysburg Address in Lincoln?s handwriting. Each is slightly different in its wording and punctuation. The version that was included in Autograph Leaves was his final version, and is considered the definitive text. Lincoln gave the first two drafts of the Gettysburg Address to his two secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay. It is presumed, but not known whether one of these drafts is the manuscript that Lincoln read from in Gettysburg. Both of these documents are now at the Library of Congress. The other three copies of the Address were written out by Lincoln in February and March of 1864 for charitable causes supporting Union soldiers. Edward Everett requested a copy for the Metropolitan Fair in New York. The Everett Copy is now at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois. Historian George Bancroft made a similar request to benefit the Baltimore Sanitary Fair. His stepson, Alexander Bliss, was collecting manuscripts for a book that was to be sold at the Fair. The Bancroft Copy?the copy at now housed at Cornell University?proved to be unsuitable for use in Autograph Leaves of Our Country?s Authors and Bliss and his colleague, John Pendleton Kennedy, were compelled to write Lincoln to request another copy of the Address for their book. Lincoln complied and wrote the fifth and final copy of his speech?the Bliss Copy?in early March of 1864. It is the only copy of the Gettysburg Address that includes a title??Address delivered at the dedication of the Cemetery at Gettysburg??a date, and his full signature. It is now in the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House. It is also the version that is on the wall of the Lincoln Memorial. The Original Pictorial cover featurres a Wreath of Peace containing a pen, a sword and a rifle. A Triumverate of our America. Note, only 4 copies exist, two in England and two in America. A true Treasure. By the Authors in Facsimile.