Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (in English, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave) is an 1845 memoir and treatise on abolition written by the African-American orator and former slave Frederick Douglass, during his stay in Lynn, Massachusetts. It is generally considered the most famous of a number of accounts written by former slaves during the same period. In factual detail, the text describes the events of his life and is considered one of the most influential works of literature to fuel the abolitionist movement of the early nineteenth century in the United States. Publication history The account of the life of Frederick Douglass was published on May 1, 1845, and within four months of this publication five thousand copies were sold. In 1860, nearly 30,000 copies were sold. The story propelled Douglass to the forefront of the anti-slavery movement. According to a comparative analysis of the same type of narrative, a "large part of its effectiveness was due to the superior technique with which Douglass told his story. Sinister reports about the evils of slavery were numerous. Douglass's narrative was exceptional in the degree