The Oxford Frederick Douglass Reader collects in one volume the most outstanding and representative work from Frederick Douglass's fifty year writing career. The reader contains the following classic texts in their entirety: the landmark fugitive slave narrative, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845), the consummate anti-slavery oration, "What To the Slave Is the Fourth of July" (1852), the pioneering novella, The Heroic Slave (1853), and the magisterial analysis of lynching, Lessons of the Hour (1894). Also included are notable examples of Douglass's journalism, in which he advocated women's rights and black enlistment in the Civil War. Generous selections from My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) illustrate Douglass's boldly revisionist personal and political agenda in his second autobiography. Major chapters from both the 1881 and the 1892 editions of the final autobiography, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, reveal the author's perspective on his own successes and his estimate of the nation's progress on the racial front in the post-war era. The introduction by Andrews offers a thoughtful review of the crucial developments in Douglass's multi-faceted career as autobiographer, journalist, lecturer and racial spokesman.
William L. Andrews is at University of Kansas.
