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

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself

Critical Edition

John R. McKivigan

Peter P. Hinks

Heather L. Kaufman

EDITORS

Gerald L. Fulkerson

TEXTUAL EDITOR

Rebecca A. Pattillo

ASSISTANT EDITOR

Kate Burzlaff, Alex Smith, and Andrew Willey

RESEARCH ASSISTANTS

Facing the title page: Frontispiece of 1845 edition of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself (Boston: Published at the Anti-Slavery Office, 1845). Wesleyan University Library, Special Collections and Archives.

First edition 2001. Critical edition 2016.

Copyright 2001, 2016 by Yale University. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers.

This edition is based on The Frederick Douglass Papers, Series Two: Autobiographical Writings, Volume 1: Narrative, ed. John W. Blassingame, John R. McKivigan, and Peter P. Hinks (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), published with assistance from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

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Set in Minion type by Integrated Publishing Solutions. Printed in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016935415

ISBN 978-0-300-20471-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.481992 (Permanence of Paper).

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The text of the Narrative in this volume follows an approved CSE edition published by Yale University Press in 1999, which included a complete textual apparatus in accordance with CSE guidelines.

When approached by Yale University Press to prepare a new paperback edition of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, we were challenged to prepare a volume superior to the edition the Frederick Douglass Papers project produced in 2001 under the direction of the late John W. Blassingame. That volume has sold well in a highly competitive marketplace containing many other modern editions of this iconic work of African American history and literature. Two editors of this current volume worked with Blassingame on the 2001 edition and, aware of its unique attributes, were determined to retain them while finding other ways to make the volume even more valuable for potential readers. The current edition of Douglasss seminal narrative builds on the strengths of the original edition while making it more accessible to todays students and general readers.

A considerable asset of the 2001 edition is its central text. The staff of the Frederick Douglass Papers painstakingly determined Douglasss words as he had originally constructed them, free of both the intentional corrections introduced by copy editors and accidental corruptions caused by typesetters in every subsequent printing since Douglasss day. By adhering to the strictest professional editing standards, the Yale edition of the Narrative is the only one available to modern readers that carries the prestigious Approved Text imprimatur of the Modern Language Associations Committee on Scholarly Editing. The text has been reprinted without change in the new edition.

The new Yale edition retains the original 2001 introduction written by the founding editor of the Frederick Douglass Papers, John W. Blassingame. Blassingame was the preeminent historian of the slave narrative genre at the time of his death in 2000. His posthumously published introduction explicates how Douglasss autobiography became the most historically influential of these slave narratives. His introduction illuminates both the abolitionist ideology and the literary canons that guided Douglass in framing his life story as an antislavery weapon. In particular, Blassingame demonstrates Douglasss attention to the accuracy of every detail to describe the conditions that he and his fellow slaves endured. For the new edition, we decided not to alter this classic essay (other than to make a few minor stylistic variations and update the notes) but instead to supplement it with a new afterword. There we introduce more modern scholarship on the Narrative and discuss its enduring popularity and its influence on the modern-day appreciation of the slave experience.

This edition also includes an enhanced selection of documents, to which we supply brief introductions. A set of historical documents presents socioeconomic and intellectual forces that shaped and influenced Douglasss life and provides an overview of the institution of slavery in the Chesapeake Bay region and beyond as the drama over slavery intensified. Several documents describe the establishment and evolution of human bondage in Maryland. Other documents illustrate the growing debate both locally and nationally over the morality of treating human beings as property. Douglasss own growing antagonism toward his slave status may well have been shaped by reading some of the reproduced documents, including a speech excerpt found in Caleb Binghams famous primer, The Columbian Orator, and newspaper accounts of slave rebellions and early abolitionist activities. Also reproduced is a short example of Douglasss oratorical contribution to the New England abolitionist movement in the years before the publication of the Narrative.

Another set of documents provides contemporary comments on the accuracy of the Narrative and on its reception in the North and the South. No previous slave narrative had generated a critical reception approaching that accorded Douglasss. Blassingames comprehensive review of this reception demonstrates how Douglass rehabilitated the vital moral force of the slave narrative. Here we reproduce some of the most illuminating of those reviews as well as one of Douglasss replies to his critics.

To help readers comprehend the Narratives place in African American literature and history, this new edition also includes a final set of documents: excerpts from several key scholarly studies. These are contextualized in the afterword and augmented by a bibliography of modern titles on Douglass, his autobiography, and the testimony of American slaves on the peculiar institution of slavery. We have supplied introductory comments for all the selections.

For this edition we kept the historical annotations to the