NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

While many listeners and most libraries will want to own the audio version of this classic tale of slavery and escape, this may not be the version to purchase. Narrator Covell could be any nineteenth-century gentleman reading his memoirs; his restrained style gives little hint of the eloquent orator who contemporaries reported could move listeners to laugh and weep in turn. Covell seems so removed from the abject conditions and cruelty that Douglass endured that school children listening will either be bored or won't feel the emotional involvement such a powerful piece of literature should evoke. T.R. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: DEC 93]