Published in 1904, three years before his death, Conway's Autobiography is a peaceful and introspective account of a compelling life. Born to a slave-owning Methodist family in Virginia, Conway (1832–1907) turned away from his roots to become a proponent of anti-slavery, free religion, reform and women's suffrage. Observing and becoming involved in the developments of late nineteenth-century religious, political, scientific, literary and artistic thought, he formed friendships with central figures of the age, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thomas Carlyle, which feature in the work alongside his devoted family life. Volume 1 describes his childhood and education; antebellum Virginia and Maryland; Concord and Harvard with Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau; and Washington and Cincinnati on the eve of civil war. It also covers his arrival in England in 1863 and his first encounters at London's South Place Chapel and in the circles of social, legal and religious reform.