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A Descriptive Bibliography

The search for indications of how Frederick Douglass intended his autobiography
to read has meant the location and analysis of information sources such as his
and others' manuscript remains and their correspondence. It was as important to
establish for the first time the bibliographical history of Life and Times insofar as
the production of different typesettings during Douglass's lifetime and the textual
alterations occurring between their respective printings could prove revelatory of
intentions. In the case of Life, the bibliographical sources of textually significant
information are four series of printings in which its author had opportunities to
affect the way his work would read: the two American typesettings, or editions,
that the Park Publishing Company created in 1881 and the following year; the
single English edition that the Christian Age Office derived from the first American
edition's first printing in 1882; and the expanded version of the second American
edition for which DeWolfe, Fiske and Company originated the plates for the "Third
Part" of Life in 1892. Documented here are the four sequences to which the "Textual
Afterword" refers.

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