"Contexts and Composition History" includes a selection of lettersbetween Washington and his editor, Lyman Abbott, that reveals theprocess by which <em>Up From Slavery</em> was planned and written. Reviews from<em>The Nation, North American Review</em>, and <em>Colored American Magazine</em> offerexamples of contemporary reaction to the book. An excerpt from <em>My Larger Education</em> includes Washington's impressionsof Frederick Douglass and of his African American critics (among themW. E. B. Du Bois) and reveals his reaction to the mounting criticism ofhis social, economic, and political programs during the last years ofhis life.<br /><br />"Criticism" offers a collection of eight essays that present a variety ofperspectives on <em>Up From Slavery</em> by W. E. B. Du Bois, Kelly Miller,August Meier, Louis R. Harlan, Sidonie Smith, James M. Cox, Houston A.Baker, Jr., and William L. Andrews. Together, these essays representninety years of the best critical and historical analysis of <em>Up FromSlavery</em> and its author.<br /><br />A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are included.