Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave

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 (1818–1895) was an African American abolitionist and social reformer, author, orator, and statesman. John R. McKivigan is Mary O’Brien Gibson Professor of History at Indiana University–Purdue University, Indianapolis. Peter P. Hinks is a well-published author of scholarly monographs and documentary volumes. Heather L. Kaufman is a research associate of the Douglass Papers.