Frederick Douglass.

The pre-eminent American slave narrative published in 1845, the Narrative powerfully details the life of the abolitionist Frederick Douglass from his birth into slavery in 1818 to his escape to the North in 1838; how he endured the daily physical and spiritual brutalities of his owners and drivers, how he learned to read and write, and how he grew into a man who could only live free or die. Also included in this edition are Douglass' famous oration The Meaning of the Fourth of July to the Negro and his only known work of fiction, the novella The Heroic Slave.