Dec 24, 2009
There Was Once a Slave … | There Was Once a Slave …
At a glance:
- Author: Shirley Graham
- First Published: 1947
- Time of Work: 1834–1895
- Setting: The United States, Great Britain, Ireland, France, Italy,
North Africa, and Haiti
- Principal Characters: Frederick Douglass, Anna Murray Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown, Amelia Kemp, Abraham Lincoln, Gamaliel Bailey, Charles Sumner, Hugh Auld, Edward Covey
- Genres: Nonfiction, Biography
- Subjects: African Americans, Social action, Journalism or journalists, Social reform, Racism, Abolitionists, Slavery or slaves, Public speaking, Speeches, Biography
- Locales: Africa, France, United States, Haiti, Italy, Ireland, Great Britain
Form and Content
Shirley Graham’s There Was Once a Slave …: The
Heroic Story of Frederick Douglass is a biography that reads much
more like a novel. Eschewing the detail-oriented, documentary tone of
much biographical writing, Graham freely invents scenes, dialogue, and
descriptive details that blend to create an evocative tapestry of
Douglass’ life.
The book is divided into four parts, corresponding to four stages
in Douglass’ life, and the parts have metaphoric titles:
“The Road,” “The Lightning,” “The
Storm,” and “Toward Morning.” Each...
[The entire page is 1400 words long]
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