{\b Frederick Douglass}.

{\b Date of Birth}.: 1817

{\b Date of Death}.: 1895

{\b Works}.:
Douglass' autobiography, the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was 
published in 1845; revised versions were published in 1855, 1881 and 1892. 
Collections of Douglass' papers and letters have also been published. The 
autobiographical Life tells of Douglass' experiences as a slave; it has the 
forcefulness of an eyewitness account, and is without the sentimentality that 
has been seen as characterising other "slave narratives".  The Life describes 
recurrent themes of slavery: the separation of families, the brutal beatings 
intended to rob slaves of their humanity, the total disregard of human rights 
on the part of their masters. The Life is also tied together by subtle 
patterns of animal and maritime imagery.

{\b Featured Works}.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.

{\b General Comment}.

Douglass was born a slave amidst searing poverty. His father was Captain Aaron 
Anthony, a white man, who was also the master of Douglass' mother, Harriet 
Bailey. At the age of seven the young slave was transferred to a new master, 
Hugh Auld, in Baltimore. It was here that he received a minimal education 
through the kindness of Mrs Sophia Auld. She helped him become literate and 
was therefore a pivotal figure in his life.

Douglass married a freewoman of Baltimore, Anna Murray. Almost immediately 
afterwards the couple moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts. After the 
publication of his autobiography in 1845 in order to avoid being recaptured by 
his owners Douglass travelled through England, Scotland and Ireland for two 
years on an extensive lecture tour.

The very existence of Douglass' autobiography counters a number of charges 
made by the pro-slavery lobby in the 19th century: that Blacks are sub-human, 
that their illiteracy signifies innate degeneracy, that they are incapable of 
feeling pain. In the Life we see the "heart of darkness" finally being 
rendered luminous. Here the Negro speaks for himself and is no longer the 
object of sentimentalised caricatures of the kind we encounter in Behn or 
Henry Mackenzie. Douglass, like his predecessors Equiano and Cugoana, provides 
a rare black voice to counteract the narratives of that official history which 
often neglected the Negro.	

The comparative scarcity of Black testimony before the 20th century has 
heightened the importance of Douglass' account. He offers a sense of heritage, 
of legacy to many writers such as Baldwin, Wright and Ellison who have also 
dealt with topics such as the subordination of Negroes and the urgent need to 
escape from their backgrounds. 

Douglass' work has often been compared to the slave narratives 
of Afro-British writers such as Olaudah Equiano and Ukawsaw 
Gronniosaw.