NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS, AN AMERICAN SLAVE. WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.

Boston: Anti-Slavery Office, 1845. 

Octavo, iii-xiv, 125 pages. 

Presumed First Edition, dated April 28, 1845 at the end of text. 

This copy has the Preface and the full text of the Narrative. It has the brown coated endpages both front and back, but is lacking the engraved portrait frontispiece of Douglass, the title page and the half-title, and is also lacking the last two pages of the four page letter from Wendell Phillips, which follows the Preface by William Lloyd Garrison. 

Else in Fair condition. Bound in publisher's blue cloth with lettering in gilt and stamping in blind. Some discoloration to boards. Old damp stain and faint tide-marks basically on all of the pages (see pics).  Several markings and doodles in pencil to endpages. Faint ownership signature in pencil on ffep. Top corner of ffep chipped. 

This copy is signed in black ink, "Frederic Douglass" (without the K) vertically on the front pastedown endpage. 

Note: This looks real to us, but most examples of Douglass' signature include the "K" at the end of Frederick. Thus we have been unable to authenticate this signature.  As Is.  

Frederick Douglass's famous memoir of his life as an enslaved man that served as one of the most important pieces of literature in the abolitionist movement. It sold 5,000 copies within the first four months of its publication, and by 1850 over 30,000 copies of the Narrative had been published. 

Buyer to pay $16 Priority Mail shipping within U.S. International shipments made at $65 via Priority International.

All books may be returned for any reason within 30 days of receipt, with prior notification.