American Classics PDF EPUB Audio

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

First published: 1861
Pages: 271

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Read by Elizabeth Klett · 7 h 46 min · 43 parts

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Introduction
6:20
Childhood
8:52
The New Master and Mistress
13:19
The Slaves’ New Year’s Day
4:48
The Slave Who Dared to Feel Like a Man
24:10
The Trials of Girlhood
8:29
The Jealous Mistress
14:30
The Lover
15:06
What Slaves Are Taught to Think of the North
5:48
Sketches of Neighboring Slaveholders
17:52
A Perilous Passage in the Slave Girl’s Life
13:08
A New Tie to Life
11:29
Fear of Insurrection
11:44
The Church and Slavery
18:30
Another Link to Life
8:00
Continued Persecutions
14:08
Scenes at the Plantation
21:40
The Flight
7:12
Months of Peril
16:22
The Children Sold
11:27
New Perils
9:24
The Loophole of Retreat
9:46
Christmas Festivities
5:16
Still in Prison
9:24
The Candidate for Congress
6:24
Competition in Cunning
11:22
Important Era in my Brother’s Life
9:42
New Destination for the Children
15:38
Aunt Nancy
11:42
Preparations for Escape
19:12
Northward Bound
7:12
Incidents in Philadelphia
10:23
The Meeting of Mother and Daughter
8:02
A Home Found
6:28
The Old Enemy Again
8:26
Prejudice Against Color
5:41
The Hairsbreadth Escape
11:01
A Visit to England
6:19
Renewed Invitations to Go South
4:46
The Confession
4:31
The Fugitive Slave Law
12:06
Free At Last
16:00
Appendix
5:10

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself (1861) is a public domain work.

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About this book

Harriet Jacobs published her own story in 1861 under the name Linda Brent, one of the very few slave narratives written by a woman about a woman's experience. She recounts growing up enslaved in North Carolina, the relentless sexual pressure of her owner, and the choices she made to protect herself and her children in a system that granted her no rights over either. Her most extraordinary act of resistance was to hide for nearly seven years in a cramped attic crawlspace above her grandmother's home before finally reaching the North. Writing plainly to Northern white women, Jacobs asks them to grasp what slavery did to mothers and daughters. This free PDF and EPUB edition presents her complete narrative.

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About the author

Harriet A. Jacobs

Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) was an African American writer who escaped slavery and became an abolitionist. Her autobiography is a landmark of American literature and a vital record of the lives of enslaved women.

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