Lincoln Expert's Collection Donated to Lincoln Library

A collection of hundreds of books owned by the late Lincoln scholar and expert David Herbert Donald has been obtained by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (ALPLM) in Springfield, Illinois. According to the article in the Chicago Tribune, at least thirty of the books were ones the ALPLM had not previously had in its collection.

Donald was the author of perhaps the best single-volume biography of Lincoln, published originally in 1995. The more recent "A. Lincoln" by Ronald White is equally outstanding. Donald also wrote other books about Lincoln. He was a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for biographies of Senator Charles Sumner (a friend of the Lincolns) and the novelist Thomas Wolfe. It's strange to me that Donald did not win the Pulitzer for any of his Lincoln works.

Dr. Donald was the recipient of the only lifetime achievement award the Lincoln Library and Museum has given thus far, being honored in 2005.

If you read only one book about Abraham Lincoln, you can do no better than Donald's "Lincoln" book. Dr. Donald passed away last year (coincidentally the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth, of course) at the age of 88. He is missed in the Lincoln community.