This revision of the acclaimed and widely assigned Norton Critical Edition of Frederick Douglass's great autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself includes key examples of literary and cultural analyses that have engaged scholars over the last three decades.
- 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 revision of the acclaimed and widely assigned Norton Critical Edition of Frederick Douglass’s great autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself includes key examples of literary and cultural analyses that have engaged scholars over the last three decades. This Norton Critical Edition includes: - Frederick Douglass’s 1845 Narrative, the most influential autobiography of its kind. - A preface and explanatory footnotes by William L. Andrews and William S. McFeely. - Contemporary perspectives by Douglass, Margaret Fuller, James Monroe Gregory, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. - Essays by William L. Andrews, William S. McFeely, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Deborah E. McDowell, Houston A. Baker, Jr., Jeannine Marie DeLombard, and Robert D. Richardson, Jr. - A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography.
A new edition of one of the most influential literary documents in American and African American history Ideal for coursework in American and African American history, this revised edition of Frederick Douglass’s memoir of his life as a slave in pre-Civil War Maryland incorporates a wide range of supplemental materials to enhance students’ understanding of slavery, abolitionism, and the role of race in American society. Offering readers a new appreciation of Douglass’s world, it includes documents relating to the slave narrative genre and to the later career of an essential figure in the nineteenth-century abolition movement.
Frederick Douglass recounts early years of abuse, his dramatic escape to the North and eventual freedom, abolitionist campaigns, and his crusade for full civil rights for former slaves. It is also the only of Douglass's autobiographies to discuss his life during and after the Civil War, including his encounters with American presidents such as Lincoln, Grant, and Garfield.
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.
Published in the bicentenary year of Frederick Douglass’s birth and in a Black Lives Matter era, this edition of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass presents new research into his life as an activist and an author. A revolutionary reformer who traveled in Scotland, Ireland, England, and Wales as well as the US, Douglass published many foreign-language editions of his Narrative. While there have been many Douglasses over the decades and even centuries, the Frederick Douglass we need now is no iconic, mythic, or legendary self-made man but a fallible, mortal, and human individual: a husband, father, brother, and son. His rallying cry inspires today’s activism: “Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!” Recognizing that Douglass was bought and sold on the northern abolitionist podium no less than on the southern auction block, this edition introduces readers to Douglass’s multiple declarations of independence. The Narrative appears alongside his private correspondence as well as the early speeches and writings in which he did justice to the “grim horrors of slavery.” This volume also traces Douglass’s activism and authorship in the context of the reformist work of his wife, Anna Murray, and of his daughters and sons.
In 1848 William and Ellen Craft made one of the most daring and remarkable escapes in the history of slavery in America. With fair-skinned Ellen in the guise of a white male planter and William posing as her servant, the Crafts traveled by rail and ship--in plain sight and relative luxury--from bondage in Macon, Georgia, to freedom first in Philadelphia, then Boston, and ultimately England. This edition of their thrilling story is newly typeset from the original 1860 text. Eleven annotated supplementary readings, drawn from a variety of contemporary sources, help to place the Crafts’ story within the complex cultural currents of transatlantic abolitionism.
