Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself

About this book

Born into slavery in Edenton, North Carolina, Harriet Jacobs tells her story under the name Linda Brent. As a girl she is pursued for years by her master, Dr Flint, who is determined to make her submit to him, and she tries to protect herself through a relationship with another white man, with whom she has two children. To escape Flint and save her children, she hides for almost seven years in a tiny crawl space above a shed at her grandmother's house, too low to stand in, before escaping to the North.

Context and significance

Jacobs (1813–1897) published the book in 1861 with the help of the abolitionist Lydia Maria Child. For a long time it was thought to be a novel, until the historian Jean Fagan Yellin showed in the 1980s that its main events were true. It is one of the most important accounts of what slavery did to women. Read it with Frederick Douglass's Narrative.

About the author