Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) Mr. Lincoln Sits for His Portrait Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) Mr. Lincoln Sits for His Portrait
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) Mr. Lincoln Sits for His Portrait Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) Mr. Lincoln Sits for His Portrait

Mr. Lincoln Sits for His Portrait

By Leonard S. Marcus

$19.99

Publication Date: January 3, 2023

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Ages 10 to 12

A unique middle-grade biography of America’s sixteenth president, through the lens of one famous photograph.

On February 9, 1864, Abraham Lincoln made the mile-long walk from the Executive Mansion to photographer Mathew Brady’s Washington, DC, studio, to be joined there later by his ten-year-old son, Tad. With a fractious reelection campaign looming that year, America's first media-savvy president was intent on securing another portrait that cast him in a favorable light, as he prepared to make the case for himself to a nation weary of war. In the studio it proved to be a red-letter day. In addition to the image that later found its way onto the penny—and a pair of photos adapted for the old and new five-dollar bills—the Brady studio’s chief photographer, Anthony Berger, produced a dual portrait of Lincoln and Tad. The pose, featuring Lincoln reading to his son, was a last-minute improvisation, but the image that came of it was—and remains—incomparably tender and enduringly powerful. Immediately after the president's murder, it became a mass-produced icon—a cherished portrait of a nation’s fallen hero, a disarmingly intimate record of a careworn father’s feeling for his child, a timeless comment on books as a binding force between generations. Illustrated with archival photos and related material, here is a fascinating depiction of a peerless leader, and a memorable account of the making of an image the world has come to prize.

About the Author

Leonard S. Marcus’s acclaimed books include Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom and The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Format: Hardcover with dust jacket

Length: 128 pages

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

Publication Date: January 3, 2023

ISBN: 9780374303488

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