The cast of characters is almost Dickensian: politicians, generals, White House aides, newspapermen, Northern and Southern conspirators, amiably evil bankers, and a wife slowly going mad. In this profoundly moving novel, a work of epic proportions and intense human sympathy, Lincoln is observed by his loved ones and his rivals. Isolated in a ramshackle White House in the center of a proslavery city, Lincoln presides over a fragmenting government as Lee's armies beat at the gates. During the next four years there will be numerous plots to murder this man who has sworn to unite a disintegrating nation. The future president is in disguise, for there is talk of a plot to murder him. It opens early on a frozen winter morning in 1861, when President-elect Abraham Lincoln slips into Washington, flanked by two bodyguards. Lincoln is the cornerstone of Gore Vidal's fictional American chronicle, which includes Burr, 1876, Washington, D.C., Empire, and Hollywood. ©1993 Gore Vidal and 2012 The Beneficiaries of Gore Vidal (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.Gore Vidal The Complete Collection 4 Books Box Set. With their broad canvas and sprawling cast of fictional and historical characters, these novels present a panorama of American politics and imperialism, as interpreted by one of our most incisive and ironic observers. Together, they explore both Burr's past - and the continuing civic drama of their young nation.īurr is the first novel in Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series, which spans the history of the United States from the Revolution to post-World War II. But he is determined to tell his own story, and he chooses to confide in a young New York City journalist named Charles Schermerhorn Schuyler. In 1833, Burr is newly married, an aging statesman considered a monster by many. In 1807, he was arrested, tried, and acquitted of treason.

In 1804, while serving as vice president, Aaron Burr fought a duel with his political nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, and killed him.

Here is an extraordinary portrait of one of the most complicated - and misunderstood - figures among the Founding Fathers. For listeners who can’t get enough of the hit Broadway musical Hamilton, Gore Vidal’s stunning novel about Aaron Burr, the man who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel - and who served as a successful, if often feared, statesman of our fledgling nation.

Gore vidal empire series