Existing comment:
By combining texts and contexts, we can reconstruct the three key stages of writing the Gettysburg Address:
(1) The delivery text (the Nicolay)
(2) The spoken words, or rather, the best report of his spoken words (the reconstructed or original Associated Press report)
(3) Lincoln's revision that he wrote after the speech, when preparing his words for publication (the Hay-Everett)
"Touch any aspect of the address and you touch a mystery."
David C. Mearns (1899-1981)
David C. Mears worked for the LOC from 1918 to 1967, retiring as Chief of the Manuscript Division. Archibald MacLeish described him as "the rarest treasure in the Library of Congress." |