The Perfect Tribute

A broken pencil and a scrap of brown paper: on a rattling train to Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln tries to shape words worthy of a nation at war—and fears they are a failure.

It is November 1863, and the President travels from Washington to dedicate a cemetery on the field where thousands have fallen. With the polished orator Edward Everett beside him, Lincoln measures his rough-hewn words against Everett’s learning and eloquence, while the weight of the war presses on him. The next day, a vast crowd gathers to hear both men. Lincoln rises after Everett’s celebrated address, facing not only the people’s expectations but his own doubt. Can a few plain words reach a country divided by grief and war?

With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world.

Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.