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

Harriet Jacobs was born enslaved in North Carolina, and from girlhood endured what the plantation records never mention: the relentless sexual pursuit of the man who claimed to own her. Her resistance took a form almost impossible to believe. To escape him, she hid in a crawl space above her grandmother's porch, nine feet long and three feet high, and stayed there for nearly seven years, watching her own children grow up through a hole bored in the wall, before her chance to flee north finally came.

Published in 1861 under the name Linda Brent, her autobiography was the first slave narrative to speak openly about what slavery did to women in particular, addressed pointedly to the free women of the North. Long dismissed as fiction, it has since been fully authenticated and recognized as one of the essential American books. It is harrowing, but it is also a story of astonishing endurance, a mother out-waiting an entire system.

At roughly 79,700 words, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself runs about 9 hours at 1x narration speed. That figure is an estimate based on a typical narration pace. The exact length depends on the voice and the playback speed you choose.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself is in the public domain, so the complete text is free on Project Gutenberg and LoudReader has the entire Project Gutenberg catalog built in. To listen:

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