#45 in Biography & memoir
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, Written by Himself
- 129
- Pages
- about 2.5 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” is a short, clear-eyed memoir of slavery whose force lies in the intelligence of its author. Some readers praise the prose as engaging; others are shaken by its account of how slaveholders held power, down to keeping the enslaved ignorant of their own age and parentage. A reader who knows the subject from films may feel it says little that is new. It runs to barely 130 pages.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Packaged in handsome and affordable trade editions, Clydesdale Classics is a new series of essential literary works. From the musings of literary geniuses like Mark Twain in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to the striking personal narrative of Harriet Jacobs in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, this new series is a comprehensive collection of our literary history through the words of the exceptional few. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is perhaps the most widely read and well-known slave narrative. Originally published in 1845, the work was an instant success, selling more than 11,000 copies in the first three years. Written as a memoir of his life and experiences, the book addresses the issues of slavery from a firsthand perspective with a sage eloquence. The narrative draws from various points of Douglass’s life in stark detail: the cruelty he experienced as a slave, his escape to freedom, and how he became a famous orator and abolitionist. Initially, early skeptics had a hard time accepting that such a profound text was written by an uneducated African American slave. However, this theory was quickly disproven when he spoke in public, famously giving extraordinarily articulate speeches. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is no exception to Douglass’s vigor, poise, and wit he exemplified in his oration.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.4 across 189 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 56% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Biography & memoir average of 8.1. That is how 8.3 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.3 | 16 | 9% |
| Hardcover | 8.4 | 173 | 92% |
Frequently asked
How long is Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, Written by Himself?
It has 129 pages — shorter than 99% of the ranked books in Biography & memoir.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Biography & memoir — with scores between 7.9 and 8.3, closest to this book.
