author
Helen Nicolay
1866–1954
Best known for bringing Abraham Lincoln’s story to younger readers, she wrote with unusual closeness to her subject and a strong feel for historical detail. She was also an accomplished painter whose life moved between Washington, D.C., and the artistic world of New England.
2 Audiobooks
The Boys' Life of Lafayette
by Helen Nicolay
The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln
by Helen Nicolay
About the author
Born in Paris in 1866, Helen Nicolay was the daughter of John G. Nicolay, Abraham Lincoln’s private secretary and later one of Lincoln’s major biographers. Sources on her life describe her as both an author and an artist, and note that she spent much of her life in Washington, D.C., where she died in 1954.
Her writing is most often remembered for The Boys’ Life of Abraham Lincoln, a biography for young readers that helped introduce Lincoln to generations of children. She also completed and published work drawn from her father’s Lincoln research, which gave her a rare family connection to one of the central documentary traditions about Lincoln.
As a painter, she exhibited in well-known venues including the Corcoran Gallery, the National Academy of Design, and the Washington Watercolor Association. That mix of historian’s access, literary skill, and visual artistry gives her work a distinctive place in American cultural history.