Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl 

By Harriet Jacobs

Tormented by her master, a young mother plots a daring escape, in this courageous and captivating slave narrative

When her mother dies, six-year-old slave girl Linda Brent is sent to the big house, where she grows up serving a gentle mistress who teaches her to read and write. But the mistress’s death brings about a sudden and terrible change in Linda’s fortunes.

Her lecherous new master torments Linda mercilessly, making her life a living hell. Unable to join her two young children in their escape to the North, Linda hides in the attic above her grandmother’s house. For seven years, she waits for the opportunity to flee North Carolina and reunite with her son and daughter in the land of freedom. But when the chance finally comes, Linda discovers she has yet more pain to endure.

Based on the true story of Harriet Jacobs’s escape from the South, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is one of American literature’s most powerful indictments of the evils of slavery.