America's valiant Civil War president, Abraham Lincoln, was also the best author to hold the office of president. His Gettysburg and inauguration addresses, as well as his presidential communications and public lectures, serve as crucial records of the war and have influenced how the country will always remember it. Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Works 1832-1858 and Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1859-1865 are collected in this deluxe two-volume boxed set. Both books were first released in 1990 and have been regarded as "the best selection of Lincoln's writings available today, probably the best ever" (Christian Science Monitor).Edited by the late historian Don E. Fehrenbacher, these two books include all Lincoln's significant works from the entirety of his public life, including both sides of the complete Lincoln-Douglas debates, dozens of speeches, hundreds of personal and political letters, communications to the generals in the field, presidential messages and proclamations, poems, and private reflections on democracy, slavery, and the meaning of the Civil War's immense suffering. This is the definitive Lincoln for the general reader, "a momentous and thrilling addition to any private library" in the words of the great literary critic Alfred Kazin.