Frederick Douglass

Chesnutt, Charles W. (Charles Waddell), 1858-1932Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.8

Word count: 132K words
Chapters: 14

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Frederick Douglass by Charles W. ChesnuttAuthor: Chesnutt, Charles W. (Charles Waddell), 1858-1932,Language: English, Class: E300: History: America: Revolution to the Civil War (1783-1861), Release Date: Feb 1, 2004

Editor's review

This book is a biography of Frederick Douglass by Charles W. Chesnutt, falling under the history of America from the Revolution to the Civil War. Douglass was a key figure who escaped slavery and rose to become a leader and orator of the abolitionist movement; Chesnutt himself was an important pioneer of African American literature, giving the book both historical value and literary craft. It traces Douglass's life, presenting the brutal reality of nineteenth-century American slavery and the course of the abolitionist movement, and serves as an accessible introduction to American racial history and biographical writing. The Project Gutenberg edition is a public-domain English ebook, easy to search and cite, suitable for classroom supplementary reading or self-study. Readers should situate it within nineteenth-century American history and note the biographer's selection of materials and narrative stance; it should not be equated with Douglass's own autobiography.

Who it's for

A good fit for

General history readers curious about the American abolitionist movement and Douglass's life
Students and teachers needing public-domain English historical materials for American history courses
Readers interested in the early development of African American literature
Readers who prefer short biographies and want a quick grasp of the subject's life

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking Douglass's own autobiography
Readers who are not comfortable with English and need a complete Chinese translation
Professional researchers expecting detailed scholarly annotations and up-to-date research reviews

Reading tips

Read a chronology or background introduction to Douglass's life before the main text to avoid confusion about people and events.
Mark passages on slavery laws and abolitionist groups as you read for easy reference to historical context.
Read alongside Douglass's autobiography to compare the biographical narrative with his own account.
If English reading is difficult, first skim each chapter for the gist, then read key passages closely.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book Douglass's autobiography?

No. It is a biography of Douglass by Charles W. Chesnutt, a life narrative from another person's perspective, and a different work from the autobiography Douglass wrote himself; readers should distinguish the author's stance and sources.

What English level is needed to read this book?

The English is from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with somewhat older sentence structures and vocabulary than modern texts; readers with university-level English can read it through, and historical names of people and institutions can be checked in notes or reference works.

What are the features of the Project Gutenberg edition?

It is a free public-domain ebook whose text can be searched and cited, convenient for classroom and self-study use; it usually lacks modern scholarly annotations and an introduction, so readers need to supplement historical background themselves.

Comments

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About the author

Chesnutt, Charles W. (Charles Waddell), 1858-1932 Author

Charles W. Chesnutt (1858–1932) was an American writer known for his short stories and novels. Six of his works are included here: The Conjure Woman; The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and Selected Essays; The Marrow of Tradition; The Colonel's Dream; The House Behind the Cedars; and the biography Frederick Douglass. Public information is limited, so biographical details fall outside the scope of this introduction. His works draw largely on race relations and mixed-race identity in the post-Civil War South, often framing grave social issues within the narrative device of folk legend, with restrained irony, local color, and moral inquiry. His sustained writing on the color line, identity, and social prejudice gives him an important place in American literary history.