Republican. After the Civil War he reduced his editorial duties and wrote many of his most popular works, including the Life of Abraham Lincoln (1866), and Kathrina (1867). Holland wrote an eloquent eulogy of Abraham Lincoln within days of Lincoln's death, prompting a commission for a full biography of the late president. He quickly pulled together the lengthy Life of Abraham Lincoln, finished in February 1866, which portrayed Lincoln as an emancipator opposed to slavery. Although Holland wrote using "on-the-ground investigation," later historians noted that as a journalist with a deadline, the work had "the signs of hurry." His work also spurred Lincoln's law partner William Herndon to commence his own research and biography. Herndon was happy to help Holland but took issue with a tangential quote attributed to Lincoln in the work describing God's role in emancipation; Herndon believed Lincoln "had no religion more intense than a bland deism." In 1868 Holland traveled to Europe, and while there he met Roswell Smith. Together they developed the idea of starting a magazine. When they returned to the United States in 1869, the two men collaborated with Charles Scribner to publish Scribner's Monthly. The first issue was published in 1870 with Holland as editor. These years in New York were also productive for his own literary efforts. During the 1870s he published three novels: Arthur Bonicastle (1873), Sevenoaks (1875), and Nicholas Minturn (1877). His poetry volumes included The Marble Prophecy (1872), The Mistress and the Manse (1874), and The Puritan's Guest (1881). Holland died on October 12, 1881, at the age of 62, in New York City. Holland is buried in Springfield Cemetery in Springfield, Massachusetts. His gravestone includes a bas-relief portrait sculpted by the eminent American 19th-century sculptor, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and includes the Latin inscription "Et vitam impendere vero" meaning "to devote life to truth". Legacy Although his literary products are rarely read today, during the late nineteenth century they were enormously popular, and more than half a million volumes of Holland's writings were sold. He is also remembered today for his contributions as an editor. Holland and his wife were frequent correspondents and family friends of poet Emily Dickinson. References External links Holland Collection of Literary Letters, University of Colorado Boulder Titcomb’s Letters to Young People, Single and Married 19th-century American novelists American male novelists American magazine editors Novelists from Massachusetts 1819 births 1881 deaths East Texas Baptist University