This week's editing project was a book that was so interesting and well written, I'm actually going to recommend it to you (no, I don't get a commission). "The Gettysburg Address: Perspectives on Lincoln's Greatest Speech," edited by Sean Conant, is a collection of 15 essays about the influences on the 272-word, three-minute speech and the impacts that it has had--and is still having--around the world. I liked the way one of the contributors put it: Before the speech, "the United States" was used as a plural; afterward, it was used as a singular noun.
The Harrisburg newspaper at the time, the Patriot and Union, was unimpressed with the speech at the time, calling it "silly remarks." But 150 years later, the paper offered a retraction: "In the editorial about President Abraham Lincoln's speech delivered Nov. 19, 1863, in Gettysburg, the Patriot & Union failed to recognize its momentous importance, timeless eloquence, and lasting significance. The Patriot-News regrets the error."
And it seems there's no truth to the popular myth that Lincoln composed the speech on the back of an envelope on the train en route to Gettysburg.
The book will be published by the Oxford University Press later this year.
A work of fiction that might also be of interest to the local audience is Lisa Scottoline's new crime novel, "Betrayed," one part of which is set in the Chester County world of mushroom farms and immigrant workers.
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