the game

Harriet Ann Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is unique as a book-length slave narrative by a woman. It stands out in its emphasis on the sexual exploitation of enslaved African American women, and its demand that they be judged by different standards than those used for free white women. Since the 1981 publication of Jean Fagan Yellin's research authenticating Jacobs' authorship of Incidents, 1 there has been increasing interest in this work as an early feminist document by a woman of color. 2 Numerous articles have addressed the role Lydia Maria Child played as editor; however, none thus far have examined the text's transmission from the standpoint of textual scholarship. Because Incidents is a unique historical document, the textual history of its transmission from Jacobs' manuscript to the 1861 print edition is of interest not only to textual scholars, but to students of history, letters and culture. The introduction and appendices to Yellin's 1987 edition of Incidents ...