Abraham Lincoln: A Biography by THOMAS, Benjamin P - 1952

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952. Hardcover. 8vo. Black cloth with gilt spine lettering, pictorial dust jacket. xiv, 548pp, xii. Frontispiece, illustrations, 4 maps. Near fine/very good. Faint jacket edgewear. A tight and lovely early (not first) edition ("First and Second Printings Before Publication"), wearing one of the handsomest Lincoln jackets -- and including a superb memento mori: Tipped to the front flyleaf is a fine 3½" X 4½" printed condolence acknowledgment card sent out by Thomas's family to sympathizers, reading simply: "The family of / [Benjamin P. Thomas in blue ink] / acknowledges / with grateful appreciation / your kind expression / of sympathy." This noted historian (1902-56) historian, best remembered for this book as well as "Lincoln's New Salem" (1954), committed suicide upon learning he had been diagnosed with throat cancer. This biography was for many years considered THE standard cradle-to-grave biography.