Robert S. Levine is Professor of English and a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland.
[A] thoughtful, ground-setting book… Levine scrutinizes not merely
the times and the life-circumstances surrounding the generation of
[the] three very different accounts Douglass wrote of himself but
also the texts themselves, the tectonic changes running underneath
them. It’s a sustained performance of first-rate literary analysis
on Levine’s part.
*Open Letters Monthly*
Over the course of his life (1818–1895), Douglass published three
autobiographies, continually revising and restructuring his life
story as an ex-slave. Yet he is read and celebrated mostly for his
first, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, published
in 1845 under the aegis of William Lloyd Garrison’s Massachusetts
Anti-Slavery Society. In this finely delineated look at Douglass’
writing, Levine urges new readings of his subject’s other
autobiographical works, as well as his 1853 novella, The Heroic
Slave, in order to grasp a fuller understanding of how Douglass
came into his own and began to move away from Garrison’s ‘moral
suasion’ to an advocacy of black militancy and beyond… Levine’s
exploration of the character of Madison Washington in The Heroic
Slave as Douglass’ alter ego and his views of John Brown and
President Abraham Lincoln are especially elucidating. An astute,
thorough literary study that will invite fresh readings of
Douglass’ writing.
*Kirkus Reviews*
Levine offers a fascinating study of the most famous African
American of the mid-19th century.
*Library Journal*
A groundbreaking work of revisionary biography that reveals
Douglass as a canny writer far ahead of his time.
*John Stauffer, Harvard University*
This is a richly detailed and nuanced portrait of the artist and
social reformer as a ‘compulsive revisionist.’ Impressive in its
reach and scope.
*Robert Stepto, Yale University*
Levine is very good at showing how Douglass modulated the stories
he told about his life and times in order to serve his political
and personal purpose of the moment.
*New York Review of Books*
Show[s] how Douglass’ attention to his self-representation predates
our modern malleability, and was part and parcel to his becoming
one of the most famous and influential Americans of the 19th
Century…Levine clearly shows how Douglass amplified some parts of
his life and de-emphasized others in his writings and speeches as
his views and purposes evolved over time.
*PopMatters*
Levine successfully avoids the trap of reading Douglass’s three
autobiographies as discrete texts; instead, he considers them ‘as
part of a larger autobiographical project that encompasses a wide
range of Douglass’s writings.’ Levine’s briskly written book also
considers Douglass’s relationships with figures such as John Brown,
William Lloyd Garrison and Gerrit Smith. By focusing on his
subject’s ‘evolving and sometimes contradictory positions on race,
violence, nation, and black diasporic community,’ Levine portrays
Douglass as an ambitious and fallible character.
*Times Literary Supplement*
The Lives of Frederick Douglass offers us welcome insights into
Douglass’s powers of combination and a compelling reason to refocus
some of our attention from the first Narrative to the rest of his
remarkable and remarkably embattled career.
*American Literary History*
Pay[s] tribute to Douglass’s immense literary talents…His was one
of the most remarkable and revolutionary lives of the 19th century,
and he did not shy from writing about it…Levine’s book, which takes
[his] autobiographies as its primary subject, retraces Douglass’s
lifelong effort to tell and retell his own astonishing story…As
Levine shows, even his autobiographies were chiefly political
documents. They were less concerned with exploring his private
identity in formation than with exposing public crimes and
inspiring a mass movement against them.
*The Nation*
A nuanced and careful analysis of Frederick Douglass’s iconic
autobiographies…A book that explodes conventional wisdom on not
just Douglass but also his fraught relationships with [William
Lloyd Garrison, John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, and his erstwhile
master, Thomas Auld.]
*Civil War History*
Levine has been a major scholar of nineteenth century American
literature and African American literature for over thirty
years…The Lives of Fredrick Douglass benefits from his wide ranging
knowledge of American literature and history…Levine balances his
analysis of Douglass as a skilled practitioner of the art of
autobiography with analysis of Douglass as a canny social reformer
who sought to advance causes and his own career…His analysis of
Douglass’s depictions of his relationships to Brown, Lincoln,
Thomas Auld, Douglass’s wives, associates, and others are
revelatory, bold, and illuminating.
*Literary Matters*
[An] inspirational study…Levine’s approach is
groundbreaking…Breaking new and difficult ground, he examines the
‘productive role’ played by William Lloyd Garrison ‘and his
antislavery society’ in the construction of Douglass’s Narrative.
Adopting a scholarly decision that is not without risk, Levine
succeeds in extrapolating the tangled skeins of black–white
influence and exchange that were in evidence during the
abolitionist era. He meticulously navigates this complex and
unequal terrain with the result that he does a powerful job not of
detracting from but of reinforcing Douglass’s agency and artistry.
More particularly, Levine’s exemplary close readings trace
Douglass’s ‘skill in negotiating his situation’ and ‘new ways of
telling his life story’ in invaluable ways. He provides an
indispensable blueprint for scholars by newly mapping the
indivisible yet under-researched power dynamics at work within
antislavery networks as characterized by competing forms of
oratorical performance, epistolary prowess, political
proselytizing, and authorial self-construction. Levine’s
indefatigable examination of Douglass’s syntax and spelling in his
private writings adds grist to his mill that figures such as
Garrison had an important, if repeatedly misconstrued, role to play
in Douglass’s formative stages as a writer. As he is careful to
argue, this was a role that in no way minimizes Douglass’s own
virtuosity as an orator, performer, and author…[A] pioneering
volume.
*Slavery & Abolition*
Through his critical analysis of what Levine describes as
Douglass’s autobiographical project, Levine looks to Douglass’s
evolving ideas of race, violence, and abolitionism and advances
insights into Douglass as a writer and as a social
reformer…Levine’s The Lives of Frederick Douglass provides a
detailed look at the choices Douglass made when he sat down to
write, yielding a clearer picture of the man as a writer and
reformer while also evoking questions that invite further
scholarship on Douglass. Levine’s book will interest those seeking
to understand the intellectual life of Douglass and more fully
appreciate Douglass’s political acumen.
*Civil War Book Review*
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