Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself

The "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" is a classic text in both American literature and history. Frederick Douglass recounts his life story in this classic book. His personal road to freedom began with being sent from the Maryland plantation of his birth to live in Baltimore as a young boy. There, Frederick Douglass learned to read. More importantly, learned the power of literacy. In early adolescence, Douglass was returned to farm work, suffered abuse at the hands of cruel overseers, and witnessed abuse visited on fellow slaves. He shared his knowledge of reading with a secret "Sunday school" of 40 fellow slaves during his last years of bondage. "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" tells how Douglass ran away to the North while still in his early 20's. There he found refuge among New England abolitionists. Douglass, an excellent orator, combines concrete description of his circumstances with his own emerging analysis of slavery as a condition. His sheer determination to learn to read and unconquered will to triumph over his circumstances makes his one of America's best and most unlikely success stories. Douglass' own account of his journey from slave to one of America's great statesmen, writers, and orators is as fascinating as it is inspiring. The details in the "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" are nothing short of appalling. His descriptions of the slave trade in Baltimore and the obvious place of the whip as the principal vehicle of social control argues most eloquently against that horrible, un-American practice of tyranny and oppression.