The Lincoln biography project due from rookie Lincoln writer Doris Kearns Goodwin in October has undergone its third name change in public.When we began tracking this effort, it was called "The Uniter." This year the name was changed to "Master Among Men," as reported here previously.
The current name listed by publisher Simon & Schuster, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon shows the project's title has been changed to "Team of Rivals."
Was moviemaker Steven Spielberg alerted so he could rename his film (the one based on the unseen, unpublished book)?
The publisher's site lacks even a single line of description to help the buyer decide whether to advance order this work. However, when we go to the B&N page for the book, we find description that suggests that it has been recast from an Abraham Lincoln bio - what the public has been expecting - to a group portrait of Seward, Chase, Bates (!), and Lincoln. A short blurb from the Library Journal on the same page confirms that this is "a multiple portrait that includes William Seward, Salmon P. Chase, and Edward Bates."
On a comical note, I'm pleased to see the publisher considers the Seward, Chase and Bates of 1860 "political visionaries whose national reputations towered over Lincoln's."
Does this mean Goodwin delivered her manuscript? Only Simon & Schuster's chief editor Michael Korda knows for sure.
