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Great Sale. The Unprecedented Demand for Barrett’s Authentic Lives of Lincoln and Hamlin…

Cincinnati: Moore, Wilstach, Keys & Co., Publishers, 25 West Fourth Street, 30 June 1860. Handbill, 8.4” x 4.25”. CONDITION: Very good, old horizontal folds.

An unrecorded publisher’s handbill advertising an 1860 campaign biography of Abraham Lincoln and his running mate Hannibal Hamlin.

This prospectus suggests that an unprecedented demand for Joseph H. Barrett’s book on Lincoln and Hamlin, Life of Abraham Lincoln… (1860), has prevented the publishers from announcing the day of the work’s publication, some nine days having passed since the first copies were ready for distribution, and only a fraction of the 20,000 copies to be printed having been made.

Barrett arranged his narrative chronologically and interwove Lincoln’s speeches “so as to present to the reader a very clear view of his character and political life.” It is noted that the book contains seventy-five per cent more matter than any other book sold at a similar price, and features neatly engraved portraits of both candidates (instead of “inferior” wood-cuts). The “authentic edition” of Barrett’s work was bound in cloth and priced 63 cents, while the “cheap edition” in wrappers was priced 25 cents. Included here is a testimonial from an unnamed gentleman (possibly William Herndon), a long-time resident of Springfield, Illinois said to have been intimately associated in business with Lincoln:

Gentlemen—It gives me great pleasure to bear testimony to the singular accuracy and completeness of Mr. Barrett’s Life of Hon. Abraham Lincoln, an early copy of which you kindly placed in my hands yesterday. During my recent trip in the East, I have frequently been asked to point out which one of the volumes professing to give a history of Mr. Lincoln’s career I could recommend, and necessity has compelled me to say, that neither one was in the least satisfactory, or presents any adequate idea of his character or history. I think Mr. Barrett has succeeded admirably in producing just what is wanted for the coming campaign.

Described here as “the only man well-versed in politics who has prepared biographies of the Republican candidates from authentic materials,” Joseph Hartwell Barrett (1824–1910) served as the political editor of the Cincinnati Gazette (1857–61), was an Ohio representative to the 1860 Republican Convention in Chicago, Commissioner of Pensions in the Lincoln and Johnson administrations (1861–68), and the editor of the Cincinnati Times and Chronicle (1868–92).

No copies recorded in OCLC.

Item #7594

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