Frederick douglass autobiography synopsis of the four

The 1892 edition of Life and Times of Fredrick Douglass is the last of the four autobiographies that Douglass published in his lifetime. It was preceded by Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845), My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), and the first edition of Life and Times of Fredrick Douglass (1881).

The 1892 Life and Times is divided into three sections, with the first devoted to "His Early Life as a Slave," the second to "His Escape from Bondage," and the third to "His Complete History to the Present Time." The first two sections are almost entirely unchanged from the 1881 edition, but the third section is entirely new. Like the 1881 edition, the 1892 Life and Times opens with an introduction by George Lewis Ruffin, the first African American graduate of Harvard Law School, who hails Douglass as "our most celebrated colored man" and "the most remarkable contribution this country has given to the world" (pp. 24, 17).

While Douglass' account of his birth, childhood, escape from slavery and early career as an abolitionist remains almost entirely unchanged from the original Life and Times, in the 1892 edition Douglass revises Chapter 19 of the previous text's second section. Whereas the 1881 Life and Times had concluded with a concerned call for African Americans to live frugally and save more than they spend, the 1892 edition provides a more hopeful outlook: "it is the faith of my soul that [a] brighter and better day will yet come" (p. 616). Douglass explains that his renewed optimism is based in part on the 1890 census, which revealed that African Americans "are no longer four millions of slaves, but six millions of freemen" (p. 617). This fact belied the dire predictions of slavery advocates who had argued that if emancipated and left to their own devices, African Americans would "die out" (p. 617). This hopeful development provides a transition into the new material which Douglass adds as the third and final section of his 1892

Autobiography

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave is an 1845 memoir and treatise on abolition written by African-Americanorator and former slaveFrederick Douglass during his time in Lynn, Massachusetts. It is the first of Douglass's three autobiographies, the others being My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881, revised 1892).

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is generally held to be the most famous of a number of narratives written by former slaves during the same period. In factual detail, the text describes the events of his life and is considered to be one of the most influential pieces of literature to fuel the abolitionist movement of the early 19th century in the United States.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass comprises eleven chapters that recount Douglass's life as a slave and his ambition to become a free man. It contains two introductions by well-known white abolitionists: a preface by William Lloyd Garrison and a letter by Wendell Phillips, both arguing for the veracity of the account and the literacy of its author.

Synopsis

Douglass begins by explaining that he does not know the date of his birth (in his third autobiography, he wrote, "I suppose myself to have been born in February 1817"), and that his mother died when he was 7 years old. He has very few memories of her (children were commonly separated from their mothers), only of the rare nighttime visit. He thinks his father is a white man, possibly his owner. At a very early age, he sees his Aunt Hester being whipped. Douglass details the cruel interaction that occurs between slaves and slaveholders, as well as how slaves are supposed to behave in the presence of their masters. Douglass says that fear is what kept many slaves in servitude, for when they told the truth they were punished by their owners.

Frederick Douglass is one of the most celebrated writers in the African American literary tradition, and his first autobiography is the one of the most widely read North American slave narratives. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave was published in 1845, less than seven years after Douglass escaped from slavery. The book was an instant success, selling 4,500 copies in the first four months. Throughout his life, Douglass continued to revise and expand his autobiography, publishing a second version in 1855 as My Bondage and My Freedom. The third version of Douglass' autobiography was published in 1881 as Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, and an expanded version of Life and Times was published in 1892. These various retellings of Douglass' story all begin with his birth and childhood, but each new version emphasizes the mutual influence and close correlation of Douglass' life with key events in American history.

Like many slave narratives, Douglass' Narrative is prefaced with endorsements by white abolitionists. In his preface, William Lloyd Garrison pledges that Douglass's Narrative is "essentially true in all its statements; that nothing has been set down in malice, nothing exaggerated" (p. viii). Likewise, Wendell Phillips pledges "the most entire confidence in [Douglass'] truth, candor, and sincerity" (p. xiv). Though Douglass counted Garrison and Phillips as friends, scholars such as Beth A. McCoy have argued that their letters serve as subtle reminders of white power over the black author and his text. Indeed, in all of his subsequent autobiographies, Douglass replaced Garrison and Phillips' endorsements with introductions by prominent black abolitionists and legal scholars.

Douglass begins his Narrative with what he knows about his birth in Tuckahoe, Maryland—or more precisely, what he does not know. "I have no accurate knowledge of my age," Douglass states; nor can he positively identify his father (p. 1). Douglass