My Bondage and My Freedom is an autobiographical slave narrative written by Frederick Douglass and published in 1855. Frederick Douglass adopted February 14 as his birthday because his mother Harriet Bailey used to call him her "little valentine". Douglass was born on the Eastern Shore of Maryland; where slaves were punished for learning to read or write and so could not keep records. Based on the records of Douglass' former owner Aaron Anthony; Douglass was born in February 1818. My Bondage and My Freedom is a deep meditation on the meaning of slavery; race; and freedom; and on the power of faith and literacy; as well as a portrait of an individual and a nation a few years before the Civil War. As his narrative unfolds; Frederick Douglass - abolitionist; journalist; orator; and one of the most powerful voices to emerge from the American civil rights movement - transforms himself from slave to fugitive to reformer; leaving behind a legacy of social; intellectual; and political thought.
#207213 in Books CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform 2009-11-06Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.00 x .24 x 6.00l; .34 #File Name: 1449586813106 pages
Review
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. DO NOT BUY THIS EDITION!!By Amber MorrellThis is a review on the printing of the edition; not the actual text. Yes; this edition is the cheapest one available; but you get what you pay for! The text inside looks like it was printed straight from a Word document; it is unformatted; meaning the epigraphs at the beginning of the chapters run in with the text and cannot be differentiated. The type is RIDICULOUSLY tiny -- I'm a young college student without eye problems; but even I had a hard time reading this book because of how much they tried to cut down on costs. The Penguin Classics edition is 320 pages. This edition is 89 pages. That should tell you just how tiny the type is in this edition.Even though it is "sold and shipped" by ; you will get a "print to order" book made using CreateSpace. I ordered this book January 16th; 2016. Inside it says it was printed January 17th; 2016. This is not a quality book. The cover is a pixellated image copy and pasted from Google images that has nothing to do with the text. The back cover text is literally just the first bit of the preface. Terrible; terrible; terrible.Spend the extra seven bucks and get the Penguin Classics version! You won't regret it!0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. IMPORTANT WORK IN AMERICAN LETTERS -- JUST DON'T CALL IT A NOVELBy Nelson H. WuWhat if Founding Father Thomas Jefferson had an affair with a slave and fathered an illegitimate mulatto daughter? Author William Wells Brown uses this as a point of departure for “Clotel; or the President’s Daughter†to examine race relations in 1800s America. Often billed as the first novel published by an African American; “Clotel†establishes many of the themes and introduces the stock characters that would populate what scholars refer to as the "slave narrative.†This is; then; a seminal work in American letters. Just don’t call it a novel.While the narrative contains romance; intrigue; breathless escapes and a cast of memorable characters; Brown is less interested in telling a typical 1800s melodrama than he is in presenting a series of polemical arguments that systematically reveal the “peculiar institution†as inhumane; un-American and; ultimately; sacrilegious. Time and again; Brown interrupts the story to deliver a pages-long diatribe meant to convince the reader of slavery’s evils. As a result; the story keeps tripping over its own agenda.The story doesn’t even concentrate exclusively on Clotel and her adventures. Rather; it focuses on Clotel; her sister and their mother; and traces the three women’s lives after they are cruelly separated from each other. Clotel becomes a “kept woman†to a white; liberal-leaning gentleman. Cloistered in her own home; she dreams of seeing her mother; sister and – eventually – her own child again. This sets in motion numerous daring escapes as Clotel travels across the country; chasing her dreams and her freedom.This brief summary actually makes “Clotel†seem like a page-turner. It’s not – and Brown never intended it to be. It’s a series of polemical essays built around a story. As the introduction to this Modern Library edition notes; Brown wrote the book for a European audience and he has no interest in writing a Dickens-esque or Dumas-like adventure; which is too bad since that’s one reason why a more troublesome piece of literature like “Uncle Tom’s Cabin;†with its propulsive narrative; remains on high-school reading lists while “Clotel†is consigned to graduate seminars and usually buried deep within university curriculum. After all; if you’re motivated enough to pick up this book; chances are that you hardly need convincing that slavery can never be justified on any level. It’s best; then; to approach “Clotel†as a historical document – a snapshot of a moment in time that captures what pro- and anti-slavery Americans were thinking just before the Civil War that would forever change the course of American history.3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. fiction essay combinedBy WandaThis novel is interesting even though it is as much narrative essay against the evils of slavery as a piece of fiction. Mr. Brown aims his pen squarely at Christians; challenging them to live their faith. Himself an escaped slave who helped others escape; his story is an authentic indictment of slavery and it's interesting that rumors of Jefferson's children with Sally Hemings were well known long before modern historians had DNA evidence to prove it.
