Author: BLISS, ALEXANDER; KENNEDY, JOHN PENDLETON (COMPILERS)
Title: Autograph Leaves of Our Country's Authors
Description: Baltimore, Cushings & Bailey. 1864, First Edition. Embossed Cloth, 4to - Over 9 3/4 " - 12" Tall. Hardcover, First Edition of the first publication of the definitive version of the Gettysburg Address; In his own hand, Abraham Lincoln wrote his final version of the Gettysburg Address for this publication, a work conceived and created by a former Union Army officer to benefit fellow soldiers in the Civil War. Alexander Bliss and John Pendleton Kennedy assembled and published this book in 1864 to raise money for the Baltimore Sanitary Fair (The Maryland State Fair for Soldier Relief). They solicited many prominent Americans, including Abraham Lincoln, John Greenleaf Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Edgar Allen Poe, just to name a few, to provide hand-written copies of one of their works. This book contains the final and definitive version of the Gettysburg Address. There are five copies of the Gettysburg Address in Lincoln's handwriting, each slightly different in its wording and punctuation. This book contains the only copy that includes a title - "Address Delivered at the Dedication of the Cemetery at Gettysburg" - dated November 19, 1863, and his full signature. The binding is tight but very scuffed, with loss at the spine extremities, edge wear, and worn at the board corners; The interior is nearly spotless, with the original flat brown endpapers extant and unbroken at the gutters. Very Good.

Keywords: The Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln, American History and Literature American History/Americana


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