The Frederick Douglass Papers

WARNING

You are viewing an older version of the Yalebooks website. Please visit out new website with more updated information and a better user experience: https://www.yalebooks.com

Series Two: Autobiographical Writings, Volume 1: Narrative

Frederick Douglass; Edited by John W. Blassingame, John R. McKivigan, and Peter P. Hinks; Textual editor, Gerald Fulkerson

View Inside Format: Cloth
Price: $75.00

YUP

Our shopping cart only supports Mozilla Firefox. Please ensure you're using that browser before attempting to purchase.

Description Reviews

This volume contains the first and most famous of Frederick Douglass’s three autobiographies, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. First published in Boston in 1845, only seven years after Douglass’s escape from bondage, the Narrative provided the foundation for its author’s antebellum reputation as a writer. Douglass went on to write two more autobiographies, becoming one of a very small number of nineteenth-century Americans to publish more than one account of their lives. His books provide an unparalleled record not only of the events of his life but also of his shifting perceptions of the complex worlds of slavery and freedom that he inhabited. The autobiographies reflect the differences in his age (the first was written when he was twenty-seven, the last when he was in his seventies), his memory, and his objectives at the various times of his writing.

This authoritative edition of Douglass’s first autobiography is comprehensively annotated and is accompanied by reproductions of historical documents relating to its publication and critical reception. The volume includes a series introduction, volume introduction, historical annotation, and appendixes.

John W. Blassingame is professor of history and African and African-American studies at Yale University. John R. McKivigan is Mary O’Brien Gibson Professor of Nineteenth-Century American History at Indiana University–Purdue University at Indianapolis. Peter P. Hinks is lecturer in history at Yale University.

“This is the definitive edition of Douglass’s great work, a must for research libraries and scholars of African-American literature and history.”—Choice

“As a part of an impressive effort to collect Douglass’s writings, this edition exceeds the standard. . . . What sets it apart from most other editions is the superb effort to authenticate and annotate the text. It is without a doubt the most authoritative modern edition, and its annotations and critical introduction are of immense value in their own right.”—David J. Libby, Journal of the Early Republic

ISBN: 9780300071962
Publication Date: July 11, 1999

288 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
5 b/w illus.

Also of Interest More from this Author Books from this Series