- This book contains custom design elements for each chapter. This classic of American literature, a dramatic autobiography of the early life of an American slave, was first published in 1845, when its author had just achieved his freedom. Its shocking first-hand account of the horrors of slavery became an international best seller. His eloquence led Frederick Douglass to become the first great African-American leader in the United States. • Douglass rose through determination, brilliance and eloquence to shape the American Nation. • He was an abolitionist, human rights and women’s rights activist, orator, author, journalist, publisher and social reformer • His personal relationship with Abraham Lincoln helped persuade the President to make emancipation a cause of the Civil War.

This new edition of Douglass's classic autobiography examines the man and the myth, his complex relationship with women, and the enduring power of his book. Included are extracts from Douglass's primary sources and examples of his writing on women's rights.

This narrative of Frederick Douglass is unabridged, and contains additional annotation at the start of the book. This section aims to give the reader some historical contexst, and contains a brief History of Slavery in America, and the Abolishment of Slavery. This will help set the stage for the narrative of Frederick Douglass that is to follow. Frederick Douglass was born in slavery as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey near Easton in Talbot County, Maryland. He was not sure of the exact year of his birth, but he knew that it was 1817 or 1818. As a young boy he was sent to Baltimore, to be a house servant, where he learned to read and write, with the assistance of his master's wife. Later in life he escaped slavery and became an influential social reformer. William Lloyd Garrison, a prominent American abolitionist, heard Douglass speak of his experience in slavery and invited him to speak at the antislavery convention in 1841. Douglass's passion captivated his audience, and following this, the American Anti-slavery Society hired him as a regular lecturer. Frederick went on to become one of America's best-known and most influential abolitionists. His story gained even more prominence when he published the narrative found in this book, "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. An American Slave. Written by Himself.". This Frederick Douglass narrative outlines his struggle from enslavement and escape to freedom. Frederick published this in 1845, and by 1850 30,000 copies had been sold in the United States and Great Britain. Frederick Douglass' work is particularly moving as he provides a first-hand account of events. As he said, "I can tell you what I have seen with my own eyes, felt on my own person, and know to have occurred in my own neighborhood." Frederick Douglass was an influential figure both in the abolitionist movement and the women's emancipation movement.

"You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man." ― Frederick Douglass, Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass This is a Original Edition which was first Published in 1845. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is an 1845 memoir and treatise on abolition written by famous orator and former slave Frederick Douglass. It is generally held to be the most famous of a number of narratives written by former slaves during the same period. Born a slave circa 1818 (slaves weren't told when they were born) on a plantation in Maryland, Douglass taught himself to read and write. This book calmly but dramatically recounts the horrors and the accomplishments of his early years--the daily, casual brutality of the white masters; his painful efforts to educate himself; his decision to find freedom or die; and his harrowing but successful escape. An astonishing orator and a skillful writer, Douglass became a newspaper editor, a political activist, and an eloquent spokesperson for the civil rights of African Americans. He lived through the Civil War, the end of slavery, and the beginning of segregation. He was celebrated internationally as the leading black intellectual of his day, and his story still resonates in ours.

Featured content includes commentary on major characters,25 important quotes, essay topics, and key themes like The Meaning of Christ in Christianity and Vengeance and Mercy.Frederick Douglass was born into slavery sometime in 1817 or 1818. Like many slaves, he is unsure of his exact date of birth. Douglass is separated from his mother, Harriet Bailey, soon after he is born. His father is most likely their white master, Captain Anthony. Captain Anthony is the clerk of a rich man named Colonel Lloyd. Lloyd owns hundreds of slaves, who call his large, central plantation the "Great House Farm." Life on any of Lloyd's plantations, like that on many Southern plantations, is brutal. Slaves are overworked and exhausted, receive little food, few articles of clothing, and no beds. Those who break rules--and even those who do not--are beaten or whipped, and sometimes even shot by the plantation overseers, the cruelest of which are Mr. Severe and Mr. Austin Gore.

Douglass's best-known work is his first autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, published in 1845. At the time, some skeptics questioned whether a black man could have produced such an eloquent piece of literature. The book received generally positive reviews and became an immediate bestseller. Within three years, it had been reprinted nine times, with 11,000 copies circulating in the United States. It was also translated into French and Dutch and published in Europe.Douglass published three versions of his autobiography during his lifetime (and revised the third of these), each time expanding on the previous one. The 1845 Narrative was his biggest seller, and probably allowed him to raise the funds to gain his legal freedom the following year, as discussed below. In 1855, Douglass published My Bondage and My Freedom. In 1881, after the Civil War, Douglass published Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, which he revised in 1892.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is an 1845 memoir and treatise on abolition written by famous orator and former slave Frederick Douglass during his time in Lynn, Massachusetts. It is generally held to be the most famous of a number of narratives written by former slaves during the same period. In factual detail, the text describes the events of his life and is considered to be one of the most influential pieces of literature to fuel the abolitionist movement of the early 19th century in the United States. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass encompasses eleven chapters that recount Douglass's life as a slave and his ambition to become a free man.