Who knew?

When I was a little girl, I read obsessively about Abraham Lincoln. My first 100+ page book was a Lincoln bio (the page count made me feel quite adult) and then I worked my way through the school library's Lincoln collection. In Illinois, there are many, many books about Honest Abe available for young readers.

So I thought I knew just about all I needed to know about Abe. I read Jean Baker's scholarly, sensitive study of Mary Lincoln a few years back, but beyond that I thought I had moved on from the Lincolns.

I'm watching an episode of Biography devoted to Lincoln and I'm fascinated. I had no idea he had such a complicated, bitter relationship with his father! I'd heard about his "melancholia," but never get it a lot of thought. There was a fiancee, Mary Owens, that I'd never heard of. His feelings about slavery were more complex than I knew. I now realize what I should have seen all along: the Lincoln books I read were written for pre-adolescents, and there would have to be much more to this extraordinary man.

My TBR pile is pretty deep right now, but I think I shall run over to the bookstore and pick up Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals. I'm suffering from more than a touch of "melancholia" my damn self and perhaps retail therapy is called for.