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  • Published: 1 June 2021
  • ISBN: 9780143134411
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $55.00

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave




An updated edition of a classic African American autobiography, with new supplementary materials

An updated edition of a classic African American autobiography, with new supplementary materials

A Penguin Vitae Edition

The preeminent American slave narrative first published in 1845, Frederick Douglass’s Narrative powerfully details the life of the abolitionist from his birth into slavery in 1818 to his escape to the North in 1838, how he endured the daily physical and spiritual brutalities of his owners and driver, how he learned to read and write, and how he grew into a man who could only live free or die. In addition to Douglass’s classic autobiography, this new edition also includes his most famous speech “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” and his only known work of fiction, The Heroic Slave, which was written, in part, as a response to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Penguin Classics presents Penguin Vitae, loosely translated as “Penguin of one’s life,” a deluxe hardcover series featuring a dynamic landscape of classic fiction and nonfiction that has shaped the course of our readers' lives. Penguin Vitae invites readers to find themselves in a diverse world of storytellers, with beautifully designed classic editions of personal inspiration, intellectual engagement, and creative originality.

  • Published: 1 June 2021
  • ISBN: 9780143134411
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $55.00

About the author

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey to a slave woman and an unknown white man in either 1817 or 1818. He was enslaved in Baltimore and Maryland for twenty years, first as a servant and then as a farm hand. He escaped in 1838, married, and settled in Massachusetts where he began work as an anti-slavery crusader. Following a fantastically eloquent speech at an anti-slavery convention he was hired by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society to lecture about his life as a slave. He was such a brilliantly gifted public speaker that many doubted he had ever been a slave, and this stereotype – that a slave couldn’t be intelligent or articulate – was something he fought ardently against. He wrote his autobiography partly to address this – it became an instant bestseller on publication. After the outbreak of the civil war he successfully persuaded President Lincoln to allow black soldiers to enlist. He was, at various times, Federal Marshall of the District of Columbia, President of the Freedman’s Bank, United States Minister to Haiti, and charge d’affaires for the Dominican Republic. He died in 1895 shortly after delivering a speech at a women’s rights rally.

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