About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherHarvard University Press

ISBN-100674447468

ISBN-139780674447462

eBay Product ID (ePID)932152

Product Key Features

Book TitleIncidents in the Life of a Slave Girl : Written by Herself

Number of Pages368 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year1987

TopicSlavery, Gender Studies, General, United States / General

IllustratorYes

GenreSocial Science, Biography & Autobiography, History

AuthorHarriet A. Jacobs

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.4 in

Item Weight15.7 Oz

Item Length9.1 in

Item Width5.9 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

LCCN86-022937

ReviewsOf these 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 insures that Harriet Jacobs will never be lost again., [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., A reprint of an autobiography first published in 1861 under a pseudonym. It tells the story of a woman born a slave in 1813 and how she struggled all her life to free herself and those she loved--indeed, as an active abolitionist she fought for the freedom of all the slaves. 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., Harriet A. Jacobs was not an ordinary slave girl, and her autobiography is not an ordinary account of the miseries of slavery. She was a slave who triumphed not only by luck or piety or passivity but by skillful planning and effective deceit...Excellent introduction...Even for those who have read extensively about the South's peculiar institution, this autobiography of a slave will not easily be forgotten.

Dewey Edition21

Dewey Decimal305.5/67/092 B

SynopsisThis 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.

LC Classification NumberE444