The portable Frederick Douglass / Frederick Douglass ; edited with an introduction and notes by John Stauffer and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

"A new collection of the seminal writings and speeches of a legendary writer, orator, and civil rights leader This compact volume offers a full course on the remarkable, diverse career of Frederick Douglass, letting us hear once more a necessary historical figure whose guiding voice is needed now as urgently as ever. Edited by renowned scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Pulitzer Prize-nominated historian John Stauffer, The Portable Frederick Douglass includes the full range of Douglass's works: the complete Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, as well as extracts from My Bondage and My Freedom and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass; The Heroic Slave, one of the first works of African American fiction; the brilliant speeches that launched his political career and that constitute the greatest oratory of the Civil War era; and his journalism, which ranges from cultural and political critique (including his early support for women's equality) to law, history, philosophy, literature, art, and international affairs, including a never-before-published essay on Haitian revolutionary Toussaint L'Ouverture. The Portable Frederick Douglass is the latest addition in a series of African American classics curated by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. First published in 2008, the series reflects a selection of great works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry by African and African American authors introduced and annotated by leading scholars and acclaimed writers in new or updated editions for Penguin Classics. In his series essay, "What Is an African American Classic?" Gates provides a broader view of the canon of classics of African American literature available from Penguin Classics and beyond. Gates writes, "These texts reveal the human universal through the African American particular: all true art, all classics do this; this is what 'art' is, a revelation of that which makes each of us sublimely human, rendered in the minute details of the actions and thoughts and feelings of a compelling character embedded in a time and place." For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators"-- Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references.

Autobiographical Writings: Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave (1845) ; From My bondage and my freedom (1855) ; From Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881) -- Fiction: The heroic slave (1853) -- Speeches: "What to the slave is the Fourth of July?" (1852) ; "The claims of the negro ethnologically considered" (1854) ; "The Dred Scott decision" (1857) ; "The significance of emancipation in the West Indies" (1857) ; "The trials and triumphs of self-made men" (1860) ; "The day of jubilee comes" (1862) ; "The proclamation and a negro army" (1863) ; "The mission of the war" (1864) ; "Pictures and progress" (1864-65) ; "Our martyred president" (1865) ; "The greedmen's monument to Abraham Lincoln" (1876) ; "Lessons of the hour" (1894) -- Journalism: "To my old master" (1848) ; "Prejudice against color" (1850) ; "F.D." (1851) ; "The word `White'" (1854) ; "Is it right and wise to kill a kidnapper?" (1854) ; "Our plan for making Kansas a free state" (1854) ; "The doom of the Black power" (1855) ; "Capt. John Brown not insane" (1859) ; "To the Rochester Democrat and American" (1859) ; "The Chicago nominations" (1860) ; "The inaugural address" (1861) ; "A trip to Haiti" (1861) ; "The fall of Sumter" (1861) ; "Fremont and his proclamation" (1861) ; "The President and his speeches" (1862) ; "Men of color, to arms!" (1863) ; "Valedictory" (1863) ; "Woman Suffrage Movement" (1870) ; "Letter from the editor" (On the Burning Down of His Rochester House) (1872) ; "Give us the freedom intended for us" (1872) -- "The color line" (1881) ; "The future of the colored race" (1886) ; "Introduction to the reason why the colored American is not in the World's Columbian Exposition" (1892) ; "Toussaint L'Ouverture" (ca. 1891).