Published in 1845, this autobiography powerfully details the life of the internationally famous 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. In his introduction, Houston A. Baker, Jr., discusses the slave narrative as a distinct American literary genre and points out its social, political, historical, and literary significance, past and present.