Edward Achorn is a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Distinguished Commentary and the author, most recently, of The Lincoln Miracle: Inside the Republican Convention That Changed Everything. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Roger Loewenstein called it “A provocative addition to the canon.”
His previous book, Every Drop of Blood: The Momentous Second Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, was named an Amazon Book of the Month. It has been praised for its lively portrait of Washington, DC during the 24 hours around Lincoln’s revered speech, delivered as the Civil War approached its bloody end.
His first book, Fifty-Nine in ’84: Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded Baseball and the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had, was published by Smithsonian Books. Critics hailed the book for brilliantly restoring to life baseball’s forgotten past – or, as the Charleston Post and Courier put it: “taking … the 1884 season out of a treasure box in baseball’s attic.”
His also the author of The Summer of Beer and Whiskey: How Brewers, Barkeeps, Rowdies, Immigrants, and a Wild Pennant Fight Made Baseball America’s Game, published by Public Affairs. The New Yorker wrote: “Combining the narrative skills of a sportswriter with a historian’s depth of knowledge and stockpile of detail, Achorn has produced a book that is both entertaining and informative.”
Ed was the editorial page editor of The Providence Journal and has won numerous writing awards, including a 2016 Yankee Quill award, honoring New England journalists for influential careers. His work appears in Best Newspaper Writing, 2007-2008. A diehard Red Sox fan, he is descended from generations of baseball cranks.