Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Bailey) doesn’t know the year of his birth. Separated from his mother in infancy, he sees her only a few times, always at night, before her death. His fellow slaves agree that his father is a white man. At the age of seven or eight, Frederick is sent from the Maryland plantation of his birth to Baltimore. His kindly new mistress starts teaching him to read, until her furious husband forbids it. Frederick realizes then that reading is his path to freedom, but his journey is long and difficult. In writing his Narrative, Frederick Douglass, a fugitive slave, revealed his slave name, the names of his masters and overseers, and the locations of his servitude. This volume also includes eleven selected essays and speeches.

Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was an African-American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writings.