{"product_id":"lincoln-bass-ackwards-manuscript","title":"Abraham Lincoln Autograph Manuscript – His Famous \"Bass-Ackwards\" Story (ca. 1845–1850)","description":"\u003cp\u003eLincoln's frontier humor drew on the tall-tale tradition of Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois. This manuscript strings together spoonerisms, transposed word-openings for comic effect, in the style later associated with Rev. William Archibald Spooner of Oxford.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"He said he was riding bass-ackwards on a jass-ack, through a patton-cotch, on a pair of baddle-sags, stuffed full of binger-gred, when the animal steered at a scump, and the lirrup-steather broke, and throwed him in the forner of the kence and broke his pishing-fole. He said he would not have minded it much, but he fell right in a great tow-curd; in fact, he said it give him a right smart sick of fitness, he had the molera-corbus pretty bad. He said, about bray dake he come to himself, ran home, seized up a stick of wood and split the axe to make a light, rushed into the house, and found the door sick abed, and his wife standing open. But thank goodness she is getting right hat and farty again.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAccording to C. F. Gunther of Chicago, relayed to Lincoln biographer Jesse W. Weik, Lincoln wrote this for a bailiff of the Springfield courts. First published by Emanuel Hertz in The Hidden Lincoln (1938). It passed through the Illinois State Historical Library (traded for a first edition of the Book of Mormon), Charles Hamilton Galleries, the Eberstadt collection, a 1994 Christie's sale, collector Louise Taper, and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Foundation, before selling again at Freeman's\/Hindman in May 2025. Exhibited at the Huntington Library (1993-94) and the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum (2001-02).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eABRAHAM LINCOLN. Autograph Manuscript, \"Bass-Ackwards\" story, ca. 1845-1850, Springfield, IL. 1 p., 7 x 8.5 in. Inventory #28226.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eCondition: silked; creasing from folds; small losses along folds affecting a few letters; small marginal loss in upper right corner not affecting text; scattered spotting.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Seth Kaller, Inc.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48187925430508,"sku":"28226","price":550000.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0774\/6732\/0556\/files\/p-2604-001-28226_p1_post_w.jpg?v=1787009406","url":"https:\/\/rareified.com\/products\/lincoln-bass-ackwards-manuscript","provider":"Rareified","version":"1.0","type":"link"}