Ida M. Tarbell 
Early Life of Abraham Lincoln [PDF ebook] 

The Early Life of Abraham Lincoln gets to the heart of young Lincoln’s life and the origins of his reputation as "honest Abe." This biography is full of fantastic insights into Lincoln’s life: looking not just at the plain facts but also into the character of Abraham Lincoln as a young man. The story of his life, which is told here more fully and consecutively bears out our belief that Abraham Lincoln inherited from his ancestry traits and qualities of mind which made him a remarkable child and a young man of unusual promise and power. The career of Abraham Lincoln is more easily understood in view of his ancestry. So far from his later career being unaccounted for in his origin and early history, it is as fully accounted for as in the case of any man.