'He could recite The Raven from memory at one point in his life.' The two never met in real life, but Grahame-Smith says that Lincoln was a great admirer of all things gothic. Partnering with him in the fight against the undead is Edgar Allan Poe. Thus, young Lincoln swears vengeance against the blood-sucking immortals. In the novel, of course, a vampire killed her.

Many other facts in the book, however, are true, starting with the death of his mother when he was 9. Grahame-Smith would like to make it clear that Lincoln never really kept a secret journal about his lifelong battle with the undead. 'My goal in writing the book was to add as much real, factual history as possible and weave it in as seamlessly as possible to make people - to actually trick people - into thinking they were reading a real biography in the style of, say, David McCullough or Doris Kearns Goodwin,' he tells NPR's Liane Hansen. 'The premise of the book is absurd,' Grahame-Smith says. Author Seth Grahame-Smith explores that premise in a new book you can really sink your teeth into. Then suppose that, in 19th-century America, the forces of good and evil battled for the soul of the new republic - what we now know as the Civil War. Imagine if, among the tired, poor and huddled masses, there was another group of immigrants who yearned to be free in America. His first novel, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, was a New York Times bestseller. Seth Grahame-Smith is a film and television writer.

Abraham lincoln vampire hunter novel