For months he lived among people whose fathers had helped Lincoln survey land, build fences and drive hogs to market.

For months he delved among old books, letters, speeches, half-forgotten newspapers and musty court records, trying to understand Lincoln.

He went there because it is only a mile away from the restored village of New Salem, where Lincoln spent the happiest and most formative years of his life.

When Carnegie came to writing the chapter dealing with the death of Rutledge, he drove over the country roads to the quiet, secluded spot where she lay buried.

[1] A portion of the binding in the copy of Dale Carnegie's Lincoln the Unknown, which is part of Temple University's Charles L. Blockson Collection, was made "from the skin of a Negro at a Baltimore Hospital and tanned by the Jewell Belting Company".

Dixon Ryan Fox, Lowell Thomas, and Homer Croy all wrote jacket copy for the original edition.