LibGuides: African American Women Writers: Harriet Jacobs

Harriet Jacobs (?1813-1897), memoirist, was born into slavery in Edenton, North Carolina, in the autumn of 1813, although she was never certain of her actual date of birth. As the child of slaves she was born a slave, but her parents, Delilah and Daniel Jacobs, protected her so that, as she was later to write: 'I was born a slave; but I never knew it till six years of happy childhood had passed away.' Jacobs' father was a carpenter, and such was his skill that, as Jacobs recalls, 'On condition of paying his mistress two hundred dollars a year, and supporting himself, he was allowed to work at his trade, and manage his own affairs. His strongest wish was to purchase his children; but, though he several times offered his hard earnings for that purpose, he never succeeded.' Such was the comfort of Jacobs' family home that 'though we were all slaves, I was so fondly shielded that I never dreamed I was a piece of merchandise, trusted to them for safe keeping, and liable to be demanded of them at any moment.'

Genre: Autobiographies and memoirs; History writing; Life stories

More about Harriet Jacobs at ProQuest One Literature

By Harriet Jacobs

More editions of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
In clear and unshrinking prose, Harriet Jacobs--writing under the pseudonym Linda Brent--relates the story of her girlhood and adolescence as a slave in North Carolina and her eventual escape: a bildungsroman set in the complex terrain of a sexist, white supremacist society. Resolutely addressing women readers rather than men, Incidents in the life of a slave girl seeks to make the reader understand how the threat of sexual violence shapes the lives of enslaved Black women and children. Equally brave and searing, Incidents in the life of a slave girl is a triumph of American literature, and the unflinching narrative that broke the silence on the psychosexual exploitation of Black women.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs; Frances Smith Foster; Nellie Y. McKay
The text is that of the 1861 first edition. Contexts includes contemporary responses to Incidents, selections from Jacobs's other published writings, and extracts from her correspondence. Criticism includes eleven important assessments of the narrative, contributed by Jean Fagan Yellin, Ann Taves, Valerie Smith, Nellie Y. McKay, Harryette Mullen, Michelle Burnham, Nell Irvin Painter, Frances Smith Foster, Sandra Gunning, Elizabeth V. Spelman, and Christine Accomando.

About Harriet Jacobs

American Slavery: a Historical Exploration of Literature by Robert Felgar
Organized chronologically to show evolving attitudes toward American slavery in the 19th century, the work focuses on four key 19th-century texts that are frequently taught, using them as a gateway for understanding this critical period and why slavery had to be destroyed if the Union was to be maintained. In addition to examiningfour works--Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn--the book also provides numerous historical documents that contextualize slavery in the literary texts.
Harriet Jacobs : a life by Jean Fagan Yellin
Jean Fagan Yellin recounts the full adventures of Harriet Jacobs, before and after slavery. Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, one of the most widely read slave narratives of all time, recounts through the pseudonymous character named "Linda" the adventures of a young female slave who spent seven years in her grandmother's attic hiding from her sexually abusive and cruel master. Jean Yellin takes us inside that attic with Harriet Jacobs and then follows her on her escape to the North, where she found safe haven with Quaker abolitionists. Drawing upon decades of original research with never-before-seen archival sources, Yellin creates a complete picture of the events that inspired Incidents and offers the first rounded picture of Jacobs's life in the thirty-six years after the book's publication. Harrassed by her former owner, living under threat of recapture until the end of the Civil War, Jacobs survived poverty, ran a boarding house, and built a career as a political writer and speaker, struggling all the while to provide for her family.
Harriet Jacobs and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Rafia Zafar (Editor); Deborah M. Garfield (Editor)
This anthology presents a far-ranging compendium of literary and cultural scholarship which will take its place as the primary resource for students and teachers of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. The essays take on a variety of subjects in Incidents, treating representation, gender, resistance, and spirituality from differing angles. The chapters contextualise both the historical figure of Harriet Jacobs and her autobiography as a created work of art; all endeavour to be accessible to a heterogeneous readership.

African American Women Writers

More about Harriet Jacobs at ProQuest One Literature

By Harriet Jacobs

More editions of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

About Harriet Jacobs