A thoughtful, nuanced portrait of Abraham Lincoln that finds his legendary political strengths rooted in his most personal struggles.

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

Recipient of an Abraham Lincoln Institute Book Award and a forWard Award from the National Mental Health Association

Giving shape to the deep depression that pervaded the sixteenth president'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.

"A shapely and insightful exegesis of the Civil War president's inner life...Beautiful."—Andrew Solomon, New York Times bestselling author of The Noonday Demon