Camptown Races: And other tales from Camptown, Kentucky

In 1847, at the Tipsy Toad Saloon in Camptown, Kentucky, Will Van Pelt shined the shoes of Abraham Lincoln and received for his efforts an> Over the next 150 years, the residents of this fictional, yet familiar Midwest area, encounter other famous people such as Stephen Foster and John L. Sullivan. But those encounters share the stage with entanglements of smalltown commonfolk: George Freeman, a young slave boy who won his freedom riding a bobtailed nag named Lucy to victory in a horse race; "Woolly" Wanda Listerman, the bearded lady; Merle Goodman, a Baptist preacher who let his desire for a young girl get the best of him; and Paul Parmele, whose family experienced a miracle when angels appeared in their> Camptown Races presents the presidential and the provincial, the renowned and the rustic, the champs and the churls, with the same unflinching honesty and humor. The sum of the sketches adds up to a portrait of the character of America's heartland and of our human heart.