Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness

Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005. First edition. First printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/good. Glued binding. Paper over boards. xiv, 350, [2] pages. Notes. Bibliography. Index. . DJ has some wear and soiling. Signed by author on t-p. Giving shape to the deep depression that pervaded Lincoln's adult life, Joshua Wolf Shenk's Lincoln's Melancholy reveals how this illness influenced both the president's character and his leadership. Lincoln forged a hard path toward mental health from the time he was a young man. Shenk draws from historical record, interviews with Lincoln scholars, and contemporary research on depression to understand the nature of his unhappiness. In the process, he discovers that the President's coping strategies; among them, a rich sense of humor and a tendency toward quiet reflection; ultimately helped him to lead the nation through its greatest turmoil. From an on-line posting: "Joshua Wolf Shenk is a writer based in New York City. His essays and articles have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Time, Harper s Magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Times, among others, and in the national bestseller Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression, edited by Nell Casey. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Lincoln s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness. Shenk teaches writing at the New School University and serves on the board of Stories at the Moth. He is a member of the advisory council to the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and a contributing editor to The Washington Monthly. He is also a member of the advisory council to the Shul of New York. Shenk s honors include a Rosalynn Carter fellow at the Carter Center, the Frank Whiting scholarship, and residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, and the Blue Mountain Center. He is a 2005-06 fellow in non-fiction at the New York Foundation for the Arts."