Synopses & Reviews
THIS EDITION HAS BEEN REPLACED BY A NEWER EDITION.
This enlarged edition of the most significant and celebrated slave narrative now completes the Jacobs family saga, surely one of the most memorable in all of American history. John Jacobs's short slave narrative, A True Tale of Slavery, published in London in 1861, adds a brother's perspective to Harriet Jacobs's own autobiography. It is an exciting addition to this now classic work, as John Jacobs presents additional historical information about family life so well described already by his sister. Importantly, it presents the people, places, and events Harriet Jacobs wrote about from the different perspective of a male narrator. Once more, Jean Yellin, who discovered this long-lost document, supplies annotation and authentication. She has also brought her Introduction up to date.
Review
[The book] is a major work in the canon of writing by Afro-American women...Jacobs's book--reaching across the gulf separating black women from white, slave from free, poor from rich, "bad" women from "good"--represents an early attempt to establish an American sisterhood. New York Times Book Review
Review
[Of] female slave narratives, Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself is the crowning achievement. Manifesting a command of rhetorical and narrative strategies rivaled only by that of Frederick Douglass, Jacobs's autobiography is one of the major works of Afro-American literature...Jacobs's narrative is a bold and gripping fusion of two major literary forms: she borrowed from the popular sentimental novel on one hand, and the slave narrative genre on the other. Her tale gains its importance from the fact that she charts, in great and painful detail, the sexual exploitation that daily haunted her life--and the life of every other black female slave...Ms. Yellin's superbly researched edition ensures that Harriet Jacobs will never be lost again. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Review
'[The book] is a major work in the canon of writing by Afro-American women...Jacobs\'s book--reaching across the gulf separating black women from white, slave from free, poor from rich, \"bad\" women from \"good\"--represents an early attempt to establish an American sisterhood.'
Review
This may be the most important story ever written by a slave woman, capturing as it does the gross indignities as well as the subtler social arrangements of the time. An introduction is invaluable in clarifying many incidents and personalities...The author writes with passion and insight into the peculiar institution of slavery. Her writing, modern in several respects, prefigures many of the developments in the later literature of the South. Wayne Lionel Aponte - The Nation
About the Author
Jean Fagan Yellin is Distinguished Professor Emerita, Department of English, Pace University, the author of Harriet Jacobs: A Life, and the editor of The Harriet Jacobs Family Papers.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction by Jean Fagan
Cast of Characters
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Preface by the Author
Introduction by the Editor
I. Childhood
II. The New Master and Mistress
III. The Slaves' New Year's Day
IV. The Slave Who Dared to Feel like a Man
V. The Trials of Girlhood
VI. The Jealous Mistress
VII. The Lover
VIII. What Slaves Are Taught to Think of the North
IX. Sketches of Neighboring Slaveholders
X. A Perilous Passage in the Slave Girl's Life
XI. The New Tie to Life
XII. Fear of Insurrection
XIII. The Church and Slavery
XIV. Another Link to Life
XV. Continued Persecutions
XVI. Scenes at the Plantation
XVII. The Flight
XVIII. Months of Peril
XIX. The Children Sold
XX. New Perils
XXI. The Loophole of Retreat
XXII. Christmas Festivities
XXIII. Still in Prison
XXIV. The Candidate for Congress
XXV. Competition in Cunning
XXVI. Important Era in My Brother's Life
XXVII. New Destination for the Children XXVIII Aunt Nancy
XXIX. Preparations for Escape
XXX. Northward Bound
XXXI. Incidents in Philadelphia
XXXII. The Meeting of Mother and Daughter
XXXIII. A Home Found
XXXIV. The Old Enemy Again
XXXV. Prejudice against Color
XXXVI. The Hairbreadth Escape
XXXVII. A Visit to England
XXXVIII. Renewed Invitations to Go South
XXXIX. The Confession
XL. The Fugitive Slave Law
XLI. Free at Last
Appendix
I. Some Account of My Early Die
II. A Further Account of My Family
III. My Uncle's Troubles
IV. My New Master's Plantation
V. My Master Goes to Washington
VI. Sensations of Freedom
VII. Cruel Treatment of Slaves
Illustrations
Abbreviations
Chronology
Correspondence
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index