How long does it take to read Behind the Scenes. By Elizabeth Keckley. Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House.?
Elizabeth Keckley
Behind the Scenes. By Elizabeth Keckley. Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House. by Elizabeth Keckley takes about 6 hours 48 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 6 hours 48 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1868. 371 pages, about 102,025 words.
14 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 11 hours 20 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 6 hours 48 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 4 hours 15 minutes |
The page count is the median across 47 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
A former slave's intimate memoir of the Lincoln White House, a timeless addition to the canons of African American and Civil War literatureOriginally published in 1868-when it was attacked as an "indecent book" authored by a "traitorous eavesdropper"-Behind the Scenes is the story of Elizabeth Keckley, who began her life as a slave and became a privileged witness to the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. Keckley bought her freedom at the age of thirty-seven and set up a successful dressmaking business in Washington, D.C. She became modiste to Mary Todd Lincoln and in time her friend and confidante, a relationship that continued after Lincoln's assassination. In documenting that friendship-often using the First Lady's own letters-Behind the Scenes fuses the slave narrative with the political memoir. It remains extraordinary for its poignancy, candor, and historical perspective.First time in Penguin Classics
Subjects: Relations with African Americans, Slaves, African American women, Dressmakers, Biography, Women slaves
