Note: Amazon has grouped together reviews of several different editions of this book; this review is for The Emancipation Proclamation (Little Books of Wisdom).
Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation is justly famed the world over, and every American or would-be American owes it to himself or herself to reread it occasionally, and this Applewood Books version is a good choice for reasons besides being sturdy, nice looking, and inexpensive.
A brief Foreward lays out the timeline of the drafting of the Emancipation Proclamation, including the well known quotation from Lincoln's reply to a Horace Greely editorial accusing him of being remiss with regard to emancipation, in which Lincoln makes clear that regardless of his personal feelings about slavery (he loathed it), his paramount object was saving the Union NOT saving or destroying slavery. What follows is the text of the three different versions of the proclamation: first draft, preliminary version, and the final, issued proclamation, along with Lincoln's introductory remarks to his cabinet regarding the second version, and last, the Thirteenth Amendment.
Note: Applewood Books has produced a nice looking inexpensive series of sturdy pocket-sized reprints of important American books, documents, speeches, pamphlets, and poems, the Little Books of Wisdom, uniform with this volume, that are ideal for gifting to doctors, lawyers, teachers, business professionals, and students of same: The Way to Wealth, George Washington's Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation, The Constitution of the United States of America, On the Art of Teaching, The Poems of Abraham Lincoln, The Strenuous Life, The Bill of Rights with Writings That Formed Its Foundation, The Path of the Law, The Constitution of the Confederate States of America, The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, A Message to Garcia, A Declaration of Sentiments, Robert's Rules of Order, Good Citizenship, On Being Human, A Discourse Upon the Duties of a Physician, The Declaration of Independence with Short Biographies of Its Signers, The Wants of Man, George Washington's Farewell Address, The Speech of Chief Seattle, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Common Sense, The Articles of Confederation, and The Gospel of Wealth.
Some selected volumes are also available in boxed sets: Books of American Wisdom Boxed Set, CEO's Gift Box of Wisdom, Doctor's Gift Box of Wisdom, Lawyer's Gift Box of Wisdom, New Citizen's Gift Box of Wisdom, and Teacher's Gift Box of Wisdom.
And some have been published in Spanish: Un Mensaje a Garcia and Constitucion de Los Estados Unidos.