Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl (Schomburg Library Of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers) (The Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers) - Softcover

Jacobs, Harriet

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195066707 ISBN 13: 9780195066708

Publisher: Oxford University Press, U.S.A., 1990

Synopsis

Not only one of the last of over one hundred slave narratives published separately before the Civil War, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) is also one of the few existing narratives written by a woman. It offers a unique perspective on the complex plight of the black woman as slave and as writer. In a story that merges the conventions of the slave narrative with the techniques of the sentimental novel, Harriet Jacobs describes her efforts to fight off the advances of her master, her eventual liaison with another white man (the father of two of her children), and her ultimately successful struggle for freedom. Jacobs' account of her experiences, and her search for her own voice, prefigure the literary and ideological concerns of generations of African-American women writers to come.

About this title

Review

"A viable alternative to male save narratives. The specific problems faced by female slaves are clearly portrayed."--Ray Doyle, West Chester Univ.
"My personal favorite...Jacobs confronts the contradictions inherent in the category 'the black woman writer.' By engaging these issues and negotiating a course through them, she anticipates the literary and ideological position of subsequent generations of black women writers."--Jean Fagan Yellin,
The Washington Post Book World
"A corrective to those who have identified the slave narrative primarily as a male genre....This particular edition, with its introduction by Valerie Smith, sheds new light on the choices its heroine Linda Brent makes."--The Women's Review of Books
"A viable alternative to male save narratives. The specific problems faced by female slaves are clearly portrayed."--Ray Doyle, West Chester Univ.
"My personal favorite...Jacobs confronts the contradictions inherent in the category 'the black woman writer.' By engaging these issues and negotiating a course through them, she anticipates the literary and ideological position of subsequent generations of black women writers."--Jean Fagan Yellin,
The Washington Post Book World
"A corrective to those who have identified the slave narrative primarily as a male genre....This particular edition, with its introduction by Valerie Smith, sheds new light on the choices its heroine Linda Brent makes."--The Women's Review of Books
"A viable alternative to male save narratives. The specific problems faced by female slaves are clearly portrayed."--Ray Doyle, West Chester Univ.
"My personal favorite...Jacobs confronts the contradictions inherent in the category 'the black woman writer.' By engaging these issues and negotiating a course through them, she anticipates the literary and ideological position of subsequent generations of black women writers."--Jean Fagan Yellin, The Washington Post Book World
"A corrective to those who have identified the slave narrative primarily as a male genre....This particular edition, with its introduction by Valerie Smith, sheds new light on the choices its heroine Linda Brent makes."--The Women's Review of Books
"A viable alternative to male save narratives. The specific problems faced by female slaves are clearly portrayed."--Ray Doyle, West Chester Univ.

"My personal favorite...Jacobs confronts the contradictions inherent in the category 'the black woman writer.' By engaging these issues and negotiating a course through them, she anticipates the literary and ideological position of subsequent generations of black women writers."--Jean Fagan Yellin, The Washington Post Book World

"A corrective to those who have identified the slave narrative primarily as a male genre....This particular edition, with its introduction by Valerie Smith, sheds new light on the choices its heroine Linda Brent makes."--The Women's Review of Books

From the Back Cover

These two slave narratives expand our knowledge of the differing ways males and females coped with enslavement and later ordeals in flight. This popularly–priced anthology contains the often taught Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs and the recently discovered A True Tale of Slavery by John S. Jacobs, her younger brother, now reprinted for the first time.

After Harriet s owner, a physician, repeatedly abused her, she escaped his sexual advances for a time by entering into a relationship with a local attorney. Her owner continued to harass her, and she sought refuge in a crawlspace where she lived in hiding. After her escape to the North, she published her narrative.

John S. Jacobs walked away as he put it, from his owner, a congressman. He sailed on a whaling ship and educated himself. He then became a paid agent of the Anti–Slavery Society, made a lecturing trip with Frederick Douglass, and finally settled in London, where he remained until it was safe for a fugitive to return to the North. He wrote his story for a London Sunday school journal where it was published in 1861.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, U.S.A.
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0195066707
• ISBN 13: 9780195066708
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 348