Bryon C. Andreasen

The intertwining histories of Lincoln and the MormonsAlthough they inhabited different political, social, and cultural arenas, Abraham Lincoln and the pioneer generation of Latterday Saints, or Mormons, shared the same nineteenthcentury world. Bryon C. Andreasen’s Looking for Lincoln in Illinois: Lincoln and Mormon Country relates more than thirty fascinating and surprising stories that show how the lives of Lincoln and the Mormons intersected.This richly illustrated and carefully researched book expands on some of the storyboards found on the Looking for Lincoln Story Trail from the Mormon capital of Nauvoo to the state capital of Springfield. Created by the Looking for Lincoln Heritage Coalition, this trail consists of wayside exhibits posted in sites of significance to Lincoln’s life and career across fiftytwo communities in Illinois. The book’s keyed maps, historic photos, and descriptions of events at inns, federal buildings, battles, Mormon expeditions, and even Lincoln’s first Illinois log cabin connect the stories to their physical locations.Exploring the intriguing question of whether Lincoln and Mormon founder Joseph Smith ever met, the book reveals that they traveled the same routes and likely stayed at the same inns. The book also includes colorful and engaging looks at key figures such as Brigham Young, various Mormon apostles, Mormon gunsmith Jonathan Browning, and more. For example, the author relates that Lincoln visited Browning in Quincy, and upon learning that Browning had once traded a gun for a Bible, quipped that it was like “turning swords into plowshares.” Anyone inspired by Lincoln, as well as Mormon and Illinois history enthusiasts, will appreciate this look back at a longpast, but not forgotten, landscape.

Uncovering the healing bond between generationsLisa Fay Coutley’s lyrical debut collection, Errata, investigates the delicate balance between parent and child, love and loss, hope and grief. Errata’s narrator reflects on struggles and fears that span generations in compositions that are at once musical and bleak. Coutley’s narrative journey is often a dark one, exploring not only the loss of loved ones but also the potential to lose one’s very self. The collection unravels the lingering consequences of abuse and addiction, yet threads of hope and determination weave a finely wrought path through the dark side of human relationships, illuminating the power of the will to survive. Coutley’s sharp yet tender collection will both haunt readers and move them to reflect, to remember, and most of all, to persevere.

Collecting fifty Abraham Lincoln sto­ries—some familiar and beloved, some fresh and unexpected—Looking for Lin­coln in Illinois: Lincoln’s Springfield is a carefully research, richly illustrated guide to the Looking for Lincoln Story Trail. Created by the Lincoln Heritage Coalition, this trail consists of 215 il­lustrated story boards in sites of sig­nificance to Lincoln’s life and career across fifty-two communities. Looking for Lincoln celebrates the trail as a rich historical resource, reproducing each of the existing storyboards and including twelve additional storyboards.The storyboards of the Lincoln Story Trail connect Lincoln-related tales to the geographical locations in which they occurred in Lincoln’s hometown, giving readers a tour of the social and cultural landscape of Lincoln’s nineteenth-century world while revealing the very human Lincoln known by friends and associ­ates. Through texts, historic photographs and images, and a map keyed to the fifty story locations in downtown Springfield, readers of this unprecedented volume are invited to imagine social and cultural landscapes that have been lost in time.