Historian, Biographer, Teacher. He won the Pulitzer Prize twice, for his biographies "Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War" (1960) and "Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe" (1987). But he is best remembered as a foremost authority on the life of Abraham Lincoln. His best-selling 1995 biography "Lincoln" was the culmination of 50 years of research and has been hailed as the finest single-volume study of the 16th President. Donald was born in Goodman, Mississippi, and received a doctorate in history from the University of Illinois in 1946. Between 1947 and 1972 he taught at Columbia, Smith, Princeton, and Johns Hopkins, specializing in the Civil War and Reconstruction periods. In 1973 he joined the faculty of Harvard and retired as professor emeritus in 1991. From the beginning of his career Donald was noted for his scrupulous handling of primary material, his elegant, politically neutral writing style, and his calm persistence in debunking myths about his subjects. His 30 books include "Lincoln's Herndon" (1948), "Lincoln Reconsidered" (1956, expanded edition 1966), "Politics of Reconstruction, 1863-1867" (1965), "Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man" (1970), "Lincoln at Home" (1999), and "We Are Lincoln Men" (2004). From time to time Donald considered venturing beyond his established forte and his biography of 20th Century novelist Thomas Wolfe was a well-received departure. In 2005, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield, Illinois established the David Herbert Donald Prize for "excellence in Lincoln studies", and he was its first recipient. For 37 years Donald and his wife lived on Lincoln Road in Lincoln, Massachusetts, and they eventually bought a family plot in Lincoln Cemetery. He wryly told reporters he picked the location for its excellent school system and proximity to Boston, not its name. At the time of his death he was working on a study of John Quincy Adams.