Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, Written by Himself (Enriched Classics)

by Frederick Douglass

book data

2127 ratings, 3.91 average rating, 187 reviews (more data...)

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4		36%
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published

October 26th 2004 by Pocket

binding

Mass Market Paperback, 208 pages

isbn

074348777X (isbn13: 9780743487771)

description

<CENTER>ENDURING LITERATURE ILLUMINATED

BY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIP</CENTER>

Frederick Douglass's powerful autobiographical accoun...more

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J rated it:

(review of isbn 1593080417)

07/03/08

Who better to tell the story of a slave than a slave? Who better to tell the story of Frederick Douglass than Frederick Douglass? Fluent and powerful, this book offers insight into the conatus (!) that makes the slave declare his freedom at any cost.

I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. At least, such is my experience. I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness. Crying for joy, and singing for joy, were alike uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery. The singing of a man cast away on a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion....more

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2 comments

Jesse rated it:

(review of isbn 014039012X)

09/07/07

bookshelves: him, us

Read in August, 2007

I know that most Goodreads members probably have their minds made up about slavery by now, but I had forgotten until recently what a remarkable piece of literature this is:

"On the one hand, there stood slavery, a stern reality,
glaring frightfully upon us,- its robes already crimsoned
with the blood of millions, and even now feasting itself
greedily upon our own flesh. On the other hand,
away back in the dim distance, under the flickering light
of the north star, behind some cragg...more

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Tyler rated it:

(review of isbn 0760742065)

05/13/08

Read in February, 2007

recommends it for: History and Biography fans

The book best suits history buffs and fans of biographies. The writing itself, while clearly that of an educated man with a point of view to put forth, also brings into the narrative the issues of alcohol and women's rights. Bringing up these issues tends to distract from the main theme, the evils of slavery. Also, the style is too emotionally forceful, where a little bit of subtlety would have illustrated the point better. The mention of earning one's own way would strike modern readers as ...more

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3 comments

Craig rated it:

(review of isbn 1580495761)

01/30/08

Read in January, 2007

recommends it for: calendar designers

Not bad for a guy who taught himself to write while his masters weren't looking. Even the smallest knowledge of Douglass' post-slave life makes you wonder at the title: Who would have the gall to chain him up, of all men? The facts of slavery are still frightening after all this time. What makes it scarier is that Douglass was in Maryland, the Northernmost of southern states. Evidentally, the farther south you were the worse it was, so if this happened in Maryland, I don't like to think about Lo...more

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King Dinösaur rated it:

(review of isbn 0760742065)

01/25/08

bookshelves: autobiography, classic

Read in January, 2007

Douglas is my second favorite black dude. Sorry, Freddie, but George Washington Carver invented peanut butter...you didn't.

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4 comments

Tortla rated it:

(review of isbn 014039012X)

08/16/08

bookshelves: classics, schooly

Read in August, 2008

Really interesting historical read, but I'm a little miffed by the excessive amount of historical context that comes before the actual text in this edition. I skipped it at first, but then I realized that it's probably helpful in appreciating the narrative, so went back to read it. It was interesting, but I kind of wish I had held off on reading the introductory parts (including those that are technically part of the narrative, but written after Frederick Douglass's work was published and not by...more

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Tim rated it:

(review of isbn 1593080417)

04/20/08

Read in April, 2008

Douglass is relentless in his attack on slavery - the damage it does to the slave's humanity by its denials (of freedom, education, of the slave's humanness to begin with) and its violence is clear, but he does not stop there. He also repeatedly asserts that slavery destroys the slaveholder's humanity, making them immune to cruelty and emptying their religion of all truth or vitality. About one master he noted, "Prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sust...more

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Mie-mie rated it:

(review of isbn 0760742065)

04/25/08

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was the best book that I enjoyed reading in class. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was a based on Douglass’ life. Douglass was born in Tuckahoe near Hillsborough. His father was a white man and his mother was Harriet Bailey. She was the daughter of Isaac and Betsey Bailey. His mother was a slave and his master was his father. His mother and him were separated when he was infant before he...more

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Regina rated it:

(review of isbn 0131166158)

03/20/08

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in March, 2008

recommends it for: everybody

I read what I believe is the first version of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. I believe there were three versions published, although I am not completely sure about this. The version I read is dated 1845. I discussed the book today with my colleagues at the U of Virginia. We have a race reading group composed of faculty, post-docs and graduate students.

It is a strange coincidence that the news this week has been filled with Obama's big speech and discussion of Rev. Wright's...more I read what I believe is the first version of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. I believe there were three versions published, although I am not completely sure about this. The version I read is dated 1845. I discussed the book today with my colleagues at the U of Virginia. We have a race reading group composed of faculty, post-docs and graduate students.

It is a strange coincidence that the news this week has been filled with Obama's big speech and discussion of Rev. Wright's views on international politics. I heard one media commentator compare Obama's paster to Frederick Douglass in his style of oratory. I am not sure if that is a fair comparison but it points to the historical importance of Frederick Douglass himself. He is basically an icon of abolition.

Not only is the narrative facinating to read on its own, it also includes a detailed historical overview. The Preface to the 1845 edition was written by William Lloyd Garrison and there is also a preface (that is more like a letter of endorsement) written by Wendell Phillips; influencial abolitionists in their own right.

The narrative itself recounts Douglass' experience as a slave on a plantation on the Eastern shore of Maryland (near the now popular tourist destination of St. Michael's, you know where Dick Cheney summers...). It also includes his experience working for a master in Baltimore's Fells Point (just blocks away from my old apartment). Finally he escapes to NYC and later relocates to New Bedford. Douglass describes each of his masters in turn drawing fine distinctions between forms of cruelty and reflecting on his own evolving understanding of the system of slavery. One of Douglass' more brilliant and most unsettling insights is about the ways in which slave holders tended to use religion to justify their actions. At the end of the narrative there in an addendum in which he tries to clarify that he himself is a Christian believer and his real problem is not with religion itself but rather with the way in which the system of slavery twists religion to its purposes. Whether every word of the narrative is "true" has been debated for a long time but there is no doubt that Douglass was clearly a talented writer.

As a person who has lived in Baltimore for 6 years and often wondered why race relations feel so different in Philadelphia this book is a vivid reminder of how important the Mason-Dixon line really was in the early 1800's. Today the eastern shore is no longer full of plantations and even the crabbing industry has dissipated. People mostly go there to sail and maybe to feel nostalgic about skip jacks. I bet very few people try to visit the plantation in Easton where Frederick Douglass was born.

After the publication of the Narrative, Douglass himself became a major historical figure in national politics but this book really only focuses on his escape from slavery. Still if you read only one slave narrative, this one is perhaps the most influential of its time.
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Melissa rated it:

(review of isbn 1580495761)

06/24/08

bookshelves: master-s-exam

Read in June, 2008

I don't know why I hadn't read this complete text sooner. Very much like Elie Wiesel's Night, Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, renders an embarrassing and tragic epoch in human history personal and gives a human face and heart to the mind-numbing statistics of a painful past. Much like Wiesel, Douglass does so with eloquence, precision, introspection, and feeling. I feel strange comparing Douglass, who wrote over a hundred year...more I don't know why I hadn't read this complete text sooner. Very much like Elie Wiesel's Night, Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, renders an embarrassing and tragic epoch in human history personal and gives a human face and heart to the mind-numbing statistics of a painful past. Much like Wiesel, Douglass does so with eloquence, precision, introspection, and feeling. I feel strange comparing Douglass, who wrote over a hundred years before Wiesel, to Wiesel, as if Wiesel were the precursor. But this is the order in which I've been introduced to them. I find it strange, as well, that Night is constantly read in American high school classrooms while, to my knowledge, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is not. Are events that took place two hundred years ago and subsequently (in part) shaped American race relations today less important than events that took place seventy years ago? Or is it just that educators don't want to ask students to plod through yet another nineteenth century text? Interesting.

Douglass is an articulate writer (which is in and of itself impressive, and even more so considering the manner in which he learned to read and write) and a brilliant rhetorician. The strength of Narrative, as a rhetorical work, is Douglass' ability to vividly and graphically show the dehumanizing effects of slavery while, at the same time, offering a testament to the humanity, intellect, agency, and potential of the heretofore stunted Black community. He shows himself hungering for pigs food and white-haired men kneeling submissively to be beaten, but he also shows his earnest attempts to learn to read, the sacrifices his friends made to be educated, and his constant and overwhelming awareness—even as a child—that his position as a slave was unfair and unnatural.

I also admire the way in which Douglass focuses on the institution of slavery as the problem. He does not shy away from condemning white slave owners or overseers as malicious, sadistic, or wrong; however, he focuses his attack on the institution of slavery. Slavery, he shows, makes monsters out of masters and brutes out of slaves. His story shows that the slaves, at the very least, can find redemption.

Coolest fact about Frederick Douglass: Slave narratives were very, very popular in antebellum America. However, most fugitive slaves wrote them anonymously; having escaped to the North, they changed names and locations to keep their identity safe and avoid recapture. To lend legitimacy to his story, Douglass did not change any names and made a point to name names often. And then--and then!--he mailed a copy of his manuscript to his old master, Thomas Auld, challenging him to refute it. So bad ass.

Quotes!

From introduction, quoted from New England Magazine in 1834: we "know our enemies better than ourselves, because we judge them with more severity; we can write better lives of them than memoirs of ourselves."

"I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and incur my own abhorrence."...less

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Michael rated it:

(review of isbn 1593083572)

08/13/08

bookshelves: non-fiction

Read in August, 2008

It is a credit to Frederick Douglass's keen perception that a book written over one hundred and seventy years ago about the evils of slavery can be pertinent today. We cannot afford to overlook Douglass's observations of how gaining power works on his masters. Even though the dynamics of master and slave are gone today, many people still exercise authority over others, parents over children, employers over employees, clergy over their congregations, and politicians over their constituencies. ...more

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Jenny rated it:

(review of isbn 1580495761)

04/11/08

Read in December, 2006

recommends it for: any humans, but especially literate racists, if there are any.

I read this book for the first time in 1998 in a classroom setting. Having remembered that I liked it then, I re-read it during my early pregnancy, back when I had a lot of time and could keep both eyes in one spot for an extended period of time. I don't know if it was the hormones, or just the fact that I wasn't feeling the pressure of being the only white girl in the African American Literature class, but it was even better than I had previously remembered it.

Quick quote from a colleague...more

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Marissa rated it:

(review of isbn 1580495761)

04/23/08

Read in January, 2008

Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Doulass was a really good book. It talks about slavery and growing up as a African American boy. This book was Americas best selling success story.
This book is about a young man that went through many obstacles to get success. He was born into a slave family. Nobody believed in him but he never gave up.
Frederick Douglass thought himself how to read and write. He would also ask the white boys off the streets for help on learning how to read. When...more

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Ellis rated it:

(review of isbn 1580495761)

01/30/08

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in January, 2008

Frederick Douglass was one of the top people in the abolision movement, but before that he was a slave. Douglass was an amazing person who learned how to read, as a young slave, by trading food for lessons from young street urchins in Baltimore. Douglass taught fellow slaves to read and eventually escaped from his owners and fled to the North where he made his life as a free man and joined the abolision movement.

One part I liked in this book is when Douglass talked about the times, after...more

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Bryan rated it:

(review of isbn 1580495761)

11/16/07

Read in October, 2007

We were assigned this book as reading in a U.S. history class while studying the period of growing sectionalism just before the Civil War. Short but full, it was probably the most interesting assignment from the class yet - it provided an opportunity to make the study of history come alive. A startling contrast from the "objectivity" of textbook history, the Narrative, of course, does not take into account white perspectives or opinions on slavery, disgustingly labeled the "peculi...more

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Qi Wen rated it:

(review of isbn 1580495761)

04/02/08

bookshelves: 07-08

I feels like this book was really meaningful to American history. Becasue of the contribution Douglass had make during the Civil war it helps the African American to be part of the united states citizens. I think that every one had to go through something that mgiht change their life and others life. But little contribution sometime means a lot. I think that people should aware of their own contribution. NOt always keep quite to themselves. Is like what had metion in Einstein's Dreams even thoug...more

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Jensen rated it:

(review of isbn 1593080417)

12/28/07

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in December, 2007

recommends it for: people interested in American history / slavery

I first decided to read this book after reading an excerpt from Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. I was interested in reading a firsthand account of slavery, so this was the perfect choice. I was amazed by Douglass' eloquence, especially when considering the fact that he taught himself to read and write and wrote the majority of the narrative while still a slave. Douglass not only provides striking detail and candid imagery, but also develops a complete explanation of the wo...more

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Jenifer rated it:

(review of isbn 0760742065)

04/15/08

bookshelves: book-club

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in April, 2008

recommends it for: everyone!

This man is truly a noble and great spirit! I am ashamed of my character when I learn of people like this.

He writes beautifully while portraying such human ugliness, that you get caught up in his words as well as his message.

The main things that struck me were when he told how "[slavery proved as injurous to [his once kind and pious mistress:] as it did to me" by changing her character, and that by slaveholders immersing their slaves in excessive eating and drinking during t...more

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Carly rated it:

(review of isbn 1593080417)

08/17/08

bookshelves: 2008

Read in August, 2008

I purchased this book with the intent of using an excerpt of it in class to show students the importance of knowing how to read and write.

I waited too long over the summer, and didn't get around to reading it until a week before school started. It's a quick read, about 100 pages. I tried at first only to skim through it, looking only for something to use in class. But I got caught up. I had to stop skimming, go back to the beginning and read the entire thing. (Didn't take long, as it ...more

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Lisa rated it:

(review of isbn 1580495761)

12/01/08

I'm always shocked at how not only slaves were treated, but that there were any slaves to begin. I didn't care for the long intro written by someone else, Douglas was an eloquent writer.

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