* Frederick Douglass - Autobiographies, Speeches, and Letters (20 books)

FREDERICK DOUGLASS (1817/1818 – 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, newspaper publisher, and statesman.  After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, becoming famous for his oratory and incisive antislavery writings.  Accordingly, he was described by abolitionists in his time as a living counterexample to slaveholders' arguments that slaves lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens.  Northerners at the time found it hard to believe that such a great orator had once been a slave.

Roy Finkenbine has written that "Douglass made a career of agitating the American conscience.  He spoke and wrote on behalf of a variety of reform causes: women's rights, temperance, peace, land reform, free public education, and the abolition of capital punishment.  But he devoted the bulk of his time, immense talent, and boundless energy to ending slavery and gaining equal rights for African Americans.  These were the central concerns of his long reform career.  Douglass understood that the struggle for emancipation and equality demanded forceful, persistent, and unyielding agitation."

Douglass wrote three autobiographies, describing his experiences as a slave in his bestselling NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS, AN AMERICAN SLAVE (1845).  In factual detail, the text describes the events of his life and is considered to be one of the most influential pieces of literature to fuel the abolitionist movement of the early 19th century in the United States. His second book, MY BONDAGE AND MY FREEDOM (1855), expanded on the first and depicts in greater detail his transition from bondage to liberty.  Following the Civil War, Douglass was an active campaigner for the rights of freed slaves and wrote his last autobiography, LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS (1881, revised 1892), which discuss his life during and after the Civil War, including his encounters with American presidents such as Lincoln and Garfield.

During his later years, Douglass remained committed to social justice and the African American community.  His prominence and work resulted in his being the most photographed American man in the 19th century.  His distinguished photographs were deliberate contradictions to the visual stereotypes of African Americans at the time, which often exaggerated their facial features, skin colour, and physical bodies and demeaned their intelligence.

Through his writings, speeches, and photographs, Frederick Douglass boldly challenged the racial stereotypes of African Americans.  Today he is renowned not just for his rise from slavery to the highest levels of American society but also for his dedication to challenging the country to recognize the rights of all people and be consistent with its ideals.


The following books are in ePub and/or PDF format as indicated:

* Complete Works (Delphi Classics, 2019) – ePub
* FD in Britain & Ireland, 1845-95 [ed. Murray] (Edinburgh, 2021) – PDF
* FD in Brooklyn [ed. Hamm] (Akashic, 2017) – ePub
* FD on Women's Rights [ed. Foner] (Da Capo, 1992) – PDF
* The Heroic Slave: A Cultural and Critical Edition (Yale, 2015) – ePub + PDF
* In the Words of FD [ed. McKivigan] (Cornell, 2012) – ePub
* Life and Times of FD [ed. Bernier] (Oxford, 2022) – ePub
* My Bondage and My Freedom [ed. Smith] (Penguin, 2003) – ePub
* My Bondage and My Freedom [ed. Blight] (Yale, 2014) – PDF
* Narrative of the Life of FD [ed. Appiah] (Modern Library, 2004) – ePub
* Narrative of the Life of FD [ed. Blight, 3e] (Macmillan, 2017) – ePub
* Narrative of the Life of FD [ed. Dworkin] (Penguin, 2014) – ePub
* Narrative of the Life of FD [ed. Gates] (Dell, 1997) – ePub
* Narrative of the Life of FD [ed. Stauffer] (Library of America, 2014) – ePub
* Narrative of the Life of FD [ed. Stepto] (Harvard, 2009) – PDF
* Narrative of the Life of FD: Critical Edition [ed. McKivigan] (Yale, 2016) – ePub
* The Portable FD [ed. Gates & Stauffer] (Penguin, 2016) – ePub
* Selected Speeches and Writings [ed. Foner] (Lawrence Hill, 1999) – PDF
* Speeches and Writings [ed. Blight] (Library of America, 2022) – ePub
* Speeches of FD: Critical Edition [ed. McKivigan et al.] (Yale, 2018) – ePub


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