My Bondage and Freedom.

DOUGLASS, Frederick .

$7,500.00

Item Number: 146541

New York & Auburn: Miller, Orton, & Mulligan, 1855.

Rare first edition of Douglass’ second autobiography. Octavo, original publisher’s brown cloth stamped in blind with gilt titles to the spine, illustrated with three engraved plates including tissued-engraved frontispiece from the classic daguerreotype of Douglass engraved by John Chester Buttre. In very good condition with light rubbing to the extremities, toning to the frontispiece and its tissue-guard. A very nice example, rare in the original publisher’s cloth which is completely free of restoration or repairs.

In his foreword to the 2003 Modern Library paperback edition, John Stauffer writes: "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." "The most influential African American of the 19th century" (ANB), Douglass was "the most powerful abolitionist speaker in the country" (Negro History). Throughout his life, "Douglass understood that the struggle for emancipation and equality demanded forceful, persistent, and unyielding agitation. And he recognized that African Americans must play a conspicuous role in that struggle" (ANB).