Reviews
Provides an enormous amount of new information and thorough documentation.
A model of historiographic detective work, this engaging study reveals some things about Douglass's background that he did not know himself.
Biography at its best, bolstered by impressive bits of historical detective work.
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.
Preston has given us in this major biography a more three-dimensional, a more human Frederick Douglass.... [His] remarkably thorough documentation now makes every other account of the first quarter of Douglass's life either suspect or inaccurate.
Book Details
Foreword by, David W. Blight
Foreword by, James Michener
Preface
Acknowledgements
Part I. A Boy Named Frederick
1. The Bailey Heritage
2. Father Image: Aaron Anthony
3. Frederick's Birth
4. The Colonel and
Foreword by, David W. Blight
Foreword by, James Michener
Preface
Acknowledgements
Part I. A Boy Named Frederick
1. The Bailey Heritage
2. Father Image: Aaron Anthony
3. Frederick's Birth
4. The Colonel and the Slave Boy
5. Rule by Terror
6. Fells Point
7. Teen-Age Rebel
8. Rebirth
9. Preparation for Freedom
Part II. The Exile's Return
10. Postwar Reunions
11. Homecoming to Talbot
Appendix A. A Douglass Chronology
Appendix B. Genealogy of Frederick Douglass
A Note on Sources
Notes
Index