The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass: From 1817-1882

"First published in 1892, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass Written By Himself is the final autobiography written by Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), a man who was born into slavery in Talbot County, Maryland. Securing his self-liberation at twenty years of age in 1838, he went on to become the most renowned antislavery activist, social justice campaigner, author, orator, philosopher, essayist, historian, intellectual, statesman, and liberator in U.S. history. A powerful literary work, Douglass' final autobiography shares the stories of his 'several lives in one.' This new edition examines Douglass' memorialization of his own and his mother's first-hand experiences of enslavement and of their 'mental' liberation through a 'love of letters;' his representation of Civil War Black combat heroism; his conviction that 'education means emancipation;' and finally, his 'unending battle' with white publishers for the freedom to 'tell my story.' This volume reproduces Frederick Douglass' emotionally powerful and politically hard-hitting anti-lynching speech, Lessons of the Hour, published in 1894. This edition includes explanatory notes, a revised introduction, and expanded bibliography"--