The “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” is an 1845 memoir of slavery and escape and a treatise on abolition written by the writer, orator and former slave Frederick Douglass. Describing in gripping detail the circumstances of his upbringing, his brutal treatment at the hands of slave-owners, and his narrow escape from Maryland to freedom, the book is one of the most famous works of American literature and provided fuel for the abolitionist movement of the early 19th century in the United States.