Best method of including an abstract in a latex 'book'?

Question

Hello there.

I've been looking for the answer to this question for a while now but can't seem to find it, so I'm hoping someone on here can help me.

I'm writing up a thesis in Latex, and really like the \frontmatter, \mainmatter and \backmatter ability when using the "book" environment. However I need to add an abstract and the \begin{abstract} environment is undefined when creating a "book". If I change to a "report" however, I lose the functionality of the *matter terms.

So what I really need to know is: is there a simple method of including an abstract in a "book" and have it formatted the same as it would be in a "report"? (i.e. centered vertically and horizontally with an 'abstract' heading)

Thanks for any help! First post on stackoverflow after reading for months!

---

Thanks to Jacob for the help. The code below is the closest I could get without making any drastic changes. If someone has a more 'proper' method of implementing this I'd be glad to hear it. ;)

\chapter*{\centering \begin{normalsize}Abstract\end{normalsize}}
\begin{quotation}
\noindent % abstract text
\end{quotation}
\clearpage

Answer 1

I recommend the memoir environment. It is very well documented and AFAIR it provides all features you need.

Answer 2

\chapter*{Abstract}
\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{Abstract}

Best I could come up with.

You can center it with

\chapter*{\centering Abstract}