书名：Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass一个美国黑奴的自传

作者：Frederick Douglass
出版社名称：Signet Classics
出版时间：2005
语种：英文
ISBN：9780451529947
商品尺寸：10.5 x 1.1 x 17.1 cm
包装：简装
页数：160 （以实物为准）
弗雷德里克·道格拉斯（Frederick Douglass）十九世纪美国废奴运动领袖，一名杰出的演说家、作家、人道主义者和政治活动家。在废奴运动中他是一个巨人般的人物。

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass《一个美国黑奴的自传》是费雷德里克·道格拉斯的人生自述。他出生在一个充满束缚的环境中，因为兴趣，秘密地自学阅读和写作。在当时，这是一种可判处死刑的罪行，但却导致了有力的对奴隶制的控诉。他引人入胜的叙述把我们带进了南方内战前种植园的田野、小屋和庄园，揭示了他作为奴隶所遭受的日常恐惧。

本书为Signet Classics推出的英文原版，由Peter J. Gomes写导言，Gregory Stephens写后记，内容完整无删减，书本轻巧便携。
Frederick Douglass’s dramatic autobiographical account of his early life as a slave in America.
Born into a life of bondage, Frederick Douglass secretly taught himself to read and write. It was a crime punishable by death, but it resulted in one of the most eloquent indictments of slavery ever recorded. His gripping narrative takes us into the fields, cabins, and manors of pre-Civil War plantations in the South and reveals the daily terrors he suffered as a slave.
Written more than a century and a half ago by an African-American who went on to become a famous orator, U.S. minister to Haiti, and leader of his people, this timeless classic still speaks directly to our age. It is a record of savagery and inhumanity that goes far to explain why America still suffers from the great injustices of the past.
With an Introduction by Peter J. Gomes and an Afterword by Gregory Stephens.

Review
“He is my friend.”  —Abraham Lincoln

“He experienced... the tyranny and circumscription of an ambitious human being who was classified as real estate.” —W.E.B. DuBois

“This narrative contains many affecting incidents, many passages of great eloquence and power...Who can read [it], and be insensible to its pathos and sublimity?” —William Lloyd Garrison
费雷德里克•道格拉斯是当时著名的美国黑人废奴运动领袖及演说家。他出生在马里兰州某种植园的奴隶家庭，青年时代有幸被送往环境较为自由的巴尔的摩接受教育。1838年21岁时，他逃至马萨诸塞州，得助于倡导废奴主义的编辑威廉•劳埃德•加里森（William Lloyd Garrison），开始为废奴组织四处演讲。1845年，他出版《一个美国黑奴的自传》，成为众多奴隶叙事作品中优秀和著名的作品。这本书的第二版于1855年问世，1892年修订再版。奴隶叙事作品通常由不识字的黑人向白人废奴主义者讲述，常被用作宣讲材料，在南北战争爆发前的几年间十分流行。道格拉斯的人生自述生动形象，文采飞扬，以独特的方式揭示了奴隶制度下人们的心理活动，以及这种制度给黑人造成的苦痛。

Frederick Douglass, born around1817, was the son of an African-American woman and a white slaveholder. Brilliant and brave, Douglass once led a minor insurrection against his masters—but unlike the famous Nat Turner, Douglass escaped his venture alive. While still a young man he fled, hungry and hunted, to the North, where he was befriended by abolitionists. His dramatic autobiography was published in 1845, creating a sensation and spurring Douglass’s career as a militant, uncompromising leader of African-Americans. He recruited African-American volunteers for the Civil War and later secured and protected the rights of the freemen. Douglass later became secretary of the Santo Domingo Commission, Recorder of Deeds in the District of Columbia, and United States Minister to Haiti. He died in 1895.

Peter J. Gomes was the minister at Memorial Church at Harvard University from 1974 until his death in 2011. Among his many books are The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart and Strength for the Journey: Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living.

Gregory Stephens is Lecturer of Cultural Studies and Film in the Department of Literature in English, University of West Indies—Mona. He is the author of On Racial Frontiers: The New Culture of Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, and Bob Marley. Previously he was an award-winning songwriter and journalist in Austin and Laredo, Texas, as well as a bilingual public school teacher (Spanish/English). He lives in Kingston, Jamaica.  

I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot county, Maryland. I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant. I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday. They seldom come nearer to it than planting-time, harvest-time, cherry-time, spring-time, or fall-time. A want of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood. The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege. I was not allowed to make any inquiries of my master concerning it. He deemed all such inquiries on the part of a slave improper and impertinent, and evidence of a restless spirit. The nearest estimate I can give makes me now between twenty-seven and twenty-eight years of age. I come to this, from hearing my master say, some time during 1835, I was about seventeen years old.