The companion volume to the ABC television documentary. Abraham Lincoln, one of the towering figures in American history -- and his visage, reproduced as it was in the pioneer days of photography -- is a familiar and permanent part of our heritage. Now, in this extraordinary and beautifully illustrated book, we are given Lincoln as we have never seen him before. The text is written by Philip B. Kunhardt, Jr., and his sons, Philip B. Kunhardt III and Peter W. Kunhardt, and is accompanied by more than 700 illustrations -- most of them drawn from the celebrated Meserve collection, which was assembled by a forebear of the Kunhardts. They include originals by Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, and other leading photographers of the day, and vividly evoke the remarkable life of the great President. From his early days on the midwestern frontier, to his election to the presidency, to his four turbulent years as wartime leader, to his tragic assassination, we get a strong sense of the President, the military leader, the homespun politician, the family man, as we follow Lincoln's striking career. This unique pictorial biography amply demonstrates the courage, devotion to deep moral convictions, and qualities of leadership that have made Abraham Lincoln the man perhaps most admired by Americans even today. With a perceptive introduction by the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Herbert Donald.