Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet A. Jacobs; A True Tale of Slavery, by John S. Jacobs Paperback / softback

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.