Seth Kaller, Inc.

[Frederick Douglass] First autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass..., 1846.  With ownership signature of F. Gertrude Page. Original blind stamped cloth, some spine loss, expertly repaired. Foxing throughout. A newspaper clipping of a poem about Douglass by Paul Laurence Dunbar is pasted to the verso of the frontispiece portrait.  Housed in an archival case.

Inventory# 11021 $3,750

Page was an ex-slave’s daughter who stayed with the Douglass family while attending Howard University.  It was she who, going upstairs to visit the ailing Douglass, discovered his body.  An exceptional association! 

Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) was born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, in Tuckahoe, Maryland, to an unknown white father and a slave mother. He changed his name to Douglass after escaping from slavery in September 1838. In 1841, he addressed the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society Convention and was employed as its agent. He wrote Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass in 1845 to document his experiences and sufferings, and to silence those who contended that a man of his abilities could not have been a slave. He became a noted orator and lectured in the U.S. and England. During the Civil War, he was instrumental in the acceptance and raising of black troops. Douglass also served in many important federal posts, including the post of Recorder of Deeds for Washington D.C., while simultaneously maintaining his leadership role in the black community.