Poor Abraham Lincoln! His life was hardly fun at all. A country torn in two by war, citizens who didn’t like him as president, a homely appearance–what could there possibly be to laugh about? And yet he did laugh. Lincoln wasn’t just one of our greatest presidents. He was a comic storyteller and a person who could lighten a grim situation with a clever quip.

This unusual biography of Lincoln highlights his life and presidency, focusing on what made his sense of humor so distinctive–and so necessary to surviving his tough life and times.