Following Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and My Bondage and My Freedom, this third memoir by the iconic abolitionist expands on Douglass’s time in bondage, his escape, and his reinvention as an influential statesman—providing many details that, in earlier years, would have endangered himself and others. It also offers a fascinating window into Douglass’s political activism and his connections to major American figures of the mid-nineteenth century, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, John Brown, and three different US presidents. Covering the period from emancipation and Reconstruction to the dawn of Jim Crow and the Gilded Age, Douglass’s final autobiography is a comprehensive—yet still quite personal—account of his life and work. And despite the tumultuousness of the era, Douglass was able to write with tremendous moral clarity about the times in which he lived.

Revised edition: Previously published as Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, this edition of Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (AmazonClassics Edition) includes editorial revisions.