Young Frederick Douglass: The Maryland Years (Maryland Paperback Bookshelf) - Softcover

Dickson J. Preston

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0801827396 ISBN 13: 9780801827396

Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985

Synopsis

Drawing on previously untapped sources, Young Frederick Douglass recreates with fidelity and in convincing detail the background and early life of the man who was to become "the gadfly of America's conscience" and the undisputed spokesman for nineteenth-century black Americans.

This highly regarded biography traces the life and times of Frederick Douglass from his birth on Maryland's Eastern Shore in 1818 until 1838, when he escaped from slavery to emerge upon the national scene. At the time of Douglass's death in 1895, one eulogist wrote that he was probably the best-known American throughout the world since Abraham Lincoln.

About this title

Review

"Provides an enormous amount of new information and thorough documentation."

(New York Times Book Review)

"Biography at its best, bolstered by impressive bits of historical detective work."

(American Historical Review)

"Describing from local documents the setting and society in which the runaway rebel grew up on Maryland's Eastern Shore and in Baltimore, Preston presents Douglass's family roots and the persons around him from his birth in 1818 until his escape in 1838. Throughout he shows what lay behind the spectacular rise of the slave boy into a free and world-famous man."

(Library Journal)

"A model of historiographic detective work, this engaging study reveals some things about Douglass's background that he did not know himself."

(George M. Fredrickson New York Review of Books)

Edition details

• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
• Publication date: 1985
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0801827396
• ISBN 13: 9780801827396
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 242