A Complete Collection of the Funny and Witty Anecdotes that made Abraham
Lincoln Famous as America's Greatest Story Teller
With Introduction and Anecdotes
By Alexander K. McClure
We have all heard the famous, though completely fictional story, about George Washington's honesty and how he "could not tell a lie", even when it meant admitting to cutting down his father's cherry tree and getting a severe punishment. In an age before television and radio, stories - some true, others fictional - about the presidents were told and retold so that in the end a body of myths and legends grew up around the real lives of the great early Presidents: George Washington, Jefferson, and of course Abraham Lincoln.
Abraham Lincoln's real life lent itself well to myth making, a fact that Lincoln's election campaign actively encouraged. After the President's death, historians attempted to gather together stories about the early life and doings of Abe Lincoln as a way to come to understand the true character and personality of this remarkable man. Many of the stories collected here are probably aprocryphal or may have been distorted and embellished by a thousand retellings around frontier kitchens. But there is also a ring of truth to the stories reproduced here, and one cannot help but think that even if they are not all true, these are certainly things that Abraham Lincoln might have said and done.
