Award-winning Lincoln scholar Richard Current dies in Boston at 100; he was leader in field

NEW YORK — Richard Nelson Current, a prolific and award-winning Abraham Lincoln scholar who for decades was a leader in his field and helped shape a more realistic view of the iconic president, has died. He was 100.

Current died Oct. 26 in Boston, fellow Lincoln historian Harold Holzer said Thursday. Current’s many books included “The Lincoln Nobody Knows” and “Lincoln the President,” winner of the Bancroft Prize in 1956. He had many other interests, writing about Daniel Webster, the invention of the typewriter and the state of Wisconsin. In his 80s, he and his wife, Marcia Ewing Current, co-wrote a biography of dancer Loie Fuller. In his 90s, he translated essays and stories by the Norwegian author Knut Hamsun, teaching himself the language of his ancestors....