The third period was introduced by the biography of Abraham Lincoln by Ward Hill Lamon, which was issued in 1872. It was based upon manuscripts that had been collected by William H. Herndon, who was supposed to have had a considerable share in the work of its preparation. Herndon emphatically denied writing any part of it, and said in a letter to Mr. Horace White that it was written for Lamon by Chauncey F. Black, son of J. S. Black, a member of Buchanan's cabinet and a political enemy of Lincoln (Newton: _Lincoln and Herndon_, p. 307). This valuable but unwisely written book, containing many things offensive to good taste, occasioned much controversy for its stark realism and what seemed to many of Lincoln's friends misrepresentations. Some of the intimate friends of Lincoln are alleged to have bought a considerable part of the edition and destroyed the books, but copies are in the principal libraries and in the best private collections.
Unterrified by the reception which had been accorded Lamon's work, William H. Herndon, for twenty years Lincoln's law partner, assisted by Jesse W. Weik, published in 1889 a Life of Lincoln, in three volumes.[1] The storm of denunciation that beat upon Herndon's head was fierce and long. The greater part of the edition disappeared. Libraries that contain it keep it under lock and key, and the prices bid for it at occasional book auctions contrast strikingly with those for which it went begging immediately after it was issued. Four years later, assisted by Mr. Horace White, Mr. Herndon reissued the book in two volumes, with those passages elided which had given greatest offense.
These two biographies mark the rise and high-water mark of the demand for "the real Lincoln"; and nobody can deny that they were quite sufficiently realistic.
The next stage in the Lincoln biography was the ten-volume Life of Lincoln by his former secretaries, John G. Nicolay and John Hay. It was issued in 1890, and called itself "a history." It is a history rather than a biography; the biographical material in it was condensed into a single volume by Mr. Nicolay in 1904. This work is monumental, and may be said to attempt the giving of materials for the complete Lincoln rather than to be in itself an effort within the proper limits of biography.