Becoming Abraham Lincoln: The Coming of Age of Our Greatest President

"A vivid, empathetic, consistently entertaining look at Lincoln's youth" as told by those who knew him best (James B. Conroy, author of Lincoln's White House).

Becoming Abraham Lincoln tells the true story of how this great American hero grew up and became a man. The story begins with Lincoln's cousin describing the murder of Abe's grandfather in 1782 by the Wabash Indians in the Kentucky wilderness. It ends as Lincoln turns twenty-five, downcast and debt-ridden after the failure of his first business venture, as he earns his first election victory to take his seat in the Illinois State Legislature.

Supported by rigorous research, Becoming Abraham Lincoln explores the president's childhood and adolescence through the firsthand accounts of those who knew him best: his friends and family. We see Lincoln as he was, according to law partner Billy Herndon, "just as he lived, breathed, ate and laughed in this world." The historic eyewitness testimony in these pages forms a rich, detailed narrative unmatched in Lincoln literature.