My Bondage and My Freedom

Douglass's second and fullest autobiography, expanding his 1845 Narrative with a mature account of slavery's system and his own path out of it — from a Maryland childhood through escape, and into his life as an abolitionist orator and editor. More analytical than the earlier book, it reflects on how slavery deforms everyone it touches and on literacy as an instrument of liberation. It stands among the most important slave narratives ever published.

Author: Frederick Douglass · Original publisher: Miller, Orton & Mulligan (New York and Auburn, NY), 1855