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Shakespeare & Beyond

Shakespeare, Abraham Lincoln, and the president's assassination

Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln. Copyright 1894 by H.W. Fay. Folger Shakespeare Library.

Growing up on the frontier, Abraham Lincoln had few books to read in his early days—but among them were the works of Shakespeare, which Lincoln cherished throughout his life. The actor Joseph Jefferson later told the story of how Lincoln, as a young lawyer, successfully defended his father’s Illinois theater when a religious revival threatened to shut it down.