Douglass in His Own Time ― A Biographical Chronicle of His Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates

Douglass in His Own Time offers an introduction to Douglass the man by those who knew him. The book includes a broad range of writings, some intended for public viewing and some private correspondence, all of which contend with the force of Douglass’s tremendous power over the written and spoken word, his amazing presence before crowds, his ability to improvise, to entertain, to instruct, to inspire?indeed, to change lives through his eloquent appeals to righteous self-awareness and social justice. In approaching Douglass through the biographical sketches, memoirs, letters, editorials, and other articles about him, readers will encounter the complexity of a life lived on a very public stage, the story of an extraordinary black man in an insistently white world.

Professor and chair of the Department of English at the University of Delaware, John Ernest is the author or editor of twelve books and more than twenty-five journal articles and book chapters. His recent books include Liberation Historiography: African American Writers and the Challenge of History, 1794?1861, Chaotic Justice: Rethinking African American Literary History, and A Nation within a Nation: Organizing African American Communities before the Civil War. Before arriving at the University of Delaware, he was the Eberly Family Distinguished Professor of American Literature at West Virginia University for seven years. He also taught for twelve years at the University of New Hampshire, where he received several awards for teaching and for his commitment to social justice.