Behind the Scenes: or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House - Brossura

Keckley, Elizabeth

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0143039245 ISBN 13: 9780143039242

Casa editrice: Penguin Classics, 2005

Riassunto

This fascinating autobiography describes one woman's life as a slave and subsequently her four years in Lincoln's White House during the Civil War. Through the eyes of this black woman, a seamstress and dressmaker who was only a few years removed from being a 'slave for life', we see historical figures and events ranging from the Lincolns in their private chambers to the return to Richmond after the fall of the Confederate capital.

Su questo libro

L'autore:

Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley was born in slavery in Virginia around 1818 and purchased her freedom in 1855. Keckley's memoir Behind the Scenes was published in 1868. The book included revelations about Mary Lincoln's private life, and, feeling betrayed, the former First Lady shunned Keckley. Her dressmaking business declined, and she died in poverty in 1907 at the Home for Destitute Women and Children in Washington, one of the institutions she had helped to found.

William L. Andrews, Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is the author of The Literary Career of Charles W. Chesnutt (1980) and To Tell a Free Story: the First Century of Afro-American Autobiography 1760-1865 (1986). He is the editor of more than thirty books on African American Literature.

Estratto. © Riproduzione autorizzata. Diritti riservati.:

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Introduction

PREFACE

 

CHAPTER I - WHERE I WAS BORN

CHAPTER II - GIRLHOOD AND ITS SORROWS

CHAPTER III - HOW I GAINED MY FREEDOM

CHAPTER IV - IN THE FAMILY OF SENATOR JEFFERSON DAVIS

CHAPTER V - MY INTRODUCTION TO MRS. LINCOLN

CHAPTER VI - WILLIE LINCOLN’S DEATH-BED

CHAPTER VII - WASHINGTON IN 1862-3

CHAPTER VIII - CANDID OPINIONS

CHAPTER IX - BEHIND THE SCENES

CHAPTER X - THE SECOND INAUGURATION

CHAPTER XI - THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN

CHAPTER XII - MRS. LINCOLN LEAVES THE WHITE HOUSE

CHAPTER XIII - THE ORIGIN OF THE RIVALRY BETWEEN MR. DOUGLAS AND MR. LINCOLN

CHAPTER XIV - OLD FRIENDS

CHAPTER XV - THE SECRET HISTORY OF MRS. LINCOLN’S WARDROBE IN NEW YORK

APPENDIX

Explanatory Notes

PENGUINCLASSICS

BEHIND THE SCENES

ELIZABETH HOBBS KECKLEY (1818-1907) was born a slave near Dinwiddie Court House, Virginia, but purchased her freedom at the age of thirty-seven and set up a successful dressmaking business in Washington, D.C., in 1860. After serving as a seamstress for Varina Davis, wife of the Mississippi senator Jefferson Davis, Keckley became the modiste for Mary Todd Lincoln, the First Lady of the United States, shortly after Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated president of the United States in 1861. Gaining ready access to the Lincoln family by virtue of her constant employment by Mrs. Lincoln, Keckley spent much of the next four years in the White House, where she became not only Mary Todd Lincoln’s dressmaker but her friend and confidante. After President Lincoln was assassinated in the spring of 1865 and his widow moved back to Illinois, Keckley remained a trusted advisor and support to Mrs. Lincoln. Stung by public criticism of her efforts to help the debt-ridden former First Lady raise money by selling her expensive wardrobe, Keckley tried to defend herself in her autobiography, Behind the Scenes, Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House, which was published in New York in 1868. Keckley’s intimate perspective on the relationship between the martyred president and his wife, along with the publication of many letters from Mrs. Lincoln to Keckley, made Behind the Scenes instantly controversial as an “indecent book” authored by a “traitorous eavesdropper.” Returning to her business, Keckley lived and worked in Washington, D.C., until 1892, when she moved to Ohio to accept a position as head of Wilberforce University’s Domestic Science department. She died in 1907, a resident of the National Home for Destitute Colored Women and Children in Washington, D.C.

 

WILLIAM L. ANDREWS, E. Maynard Adams Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is the author of The Literary Career of Charles W. Chesnutt (1980) and To Tell a Free Story: The First Century of Afro-American Autobiography, 1760-1865 (1986). He is the editor or coeditor of more than thirty books on African American literature, including The Oxford Companion to African American Literature (1997), The Norton Anthology of African American Literature (2003), and North Carolina Slave Narratives (2003). He has held research grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the American Philosophical Society, and has been a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University.

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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices; 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

 

First published in the United States of America by G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers 1868

This edition with an introduction and notes by William L. Andrews published in Penguin Books 2005

 

 

Introduction and notes copyright © William L. Andrews, 2005

All rights reserved

 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Keckley, Elizabeth, ca. 1818-1907.

Behind the scenes, or, Thirty years a slave and four years in the White House / Elizabeth Keckley ; introduction and notes by William L. Andrews. p. cm.—(Penguin classics)

Originally published: New York: G. W. Carleton & Co., 1868.

eISBN : 978-1-101-00732-7

1. Keckley, Elizabeth, ca. 1818-1907. 2. African American women—Biography. 3. Women slaves—United
States—Biography. 4. Dressmakers—United States—Biography. 5. Slaves—United States—Biography.
6. Lincoln, Mary Todd, 1818-1882-Relations with African Americans. 7. Lincoln, Abraham,
1809-1865—Relations with African Americans. I. Title: Behind the scenes. II. Title: Thirty years a slave
and four years in the White House. III. Andrews, William L., 1946- IV. Title. V. Series.

 

 

E457.15.K26 2005
973.7’092—dc22
[B] 2004051363

 

Set in Sabon

 

 

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Note on the Text

This edition of Behind the Scenes reprints the original 1868 edition, as published by G. W. Carleton & Company. The original spelling, capitalization, punctuation, paragraphing, and chapter and section divisions in the 1868 edition have been preserved in this edition, except when there is an inconsistency of spelling within a text, the evident result of a printer’s error. Keckley’s original footnotes are reprinted as they appeared in the 1868 edition. All numbered annotations to the text are provided by the editor of this Penguin Classics edition.

Introduction

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Penguin Classics
• Data di pubblicazione: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0143039245
• ISBN 13: 9780143039242
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 192