My Cousin Abe Author:Aileen Fisher This is a story told as a biography by Fisher using interviews between William H. Herndon, Lincoln's law partner and Lincoln's cousin Dennis Hanks, who has not always been accurate and doubtless has exaggerated his intimacy with his cousin. — Though uneducated, Dennis had a retentive memory, a flair for picturesque expression, and a deep regard f... more »or the memory of his illustrious relative. So, this is a story of Lilncoln as Dennis saw him. In presenting the story as fiction, she has necessarily drawn on her own imagination and invention as she admittedly couldn't have known what their greetings and responses would have been.
The point is not whether the words were actually spoken, but whether they accord with what we know of Lincoln, Dennis Hanks, and their circumstances at the moment
My Cousin Abe is a convincing and often moving read.« less