Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass

Broschiertes Buch

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl & Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Two Memoirs of Notable African-Americans During the Nineteenth Century

Beschreibung

The ordeals of two famous African Americans This special Leonaur edition combines the account of Harriet Ann Jacobs with that of Frederick Douglass. They were contemporaries and African Americans of note who shared a common background of slavery and, after their liberation, knew each other and worked for a common cause. The first account, a justifiably well known and highly regarded work, is that of Harriet Jacobs since this volume belongs in the Leonaur Women & Conflict series. Harriet Jacobs was born into slavery in North Carolina in 1813. Sold on as a child she suffered years of sexual abuse from her owner until in 1835 she escaped-leaving two children she'd had by a lover behind her. After hiding in a swamp she returned to her grandmother's shack where she occupied the crawl-space under its eaves. There she lived for seven years before escaping to Pennsylvania in 1842 and then moving on to New York, where she worked as a nursemaid. Jacobs published her book under the pseudonym of Linda Brent. She became a famous abolitionist, reformer and speaker on human rights. Frederick Douglass was just five years Jacobs' junior. He was born a slave in Maryland and he too suffered physical cruelty at the hands of his owners. In 1838 he escaped, boarding a train wearing a sailors uniform. Douglass became a social reformer of international fame principally because of his skill as an orator which propelled him to the status of statesman and diplomat as driven by his convictions regarding the fundamental equality of all human beings, he continued his campaigns for the rights of women generally, suffrage and emancipation. Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket.

Autor

Harriet Jacobs (February 11, 1813 - March 7, 1897) was an African-American writer who escaped from slavery and was later freed. She became an abolitionist speaker and reformer. Jacobs began composing Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl after her escape to New York. Portions of her journals were published in the New-York Tribune, however Jacobs's reports of sexual abuse were deemed too shocking for the average newspaper reader of the day, and publication ceased before the completion of the narrative. The autobiography was a reworking of the genres of slave narratives and sentimental novels, and was one of the first books to address the struggle for freedom by female slaves, exploring their struggles with sexual harassment and abuse, and their efforts to protect their roles as women and mothers. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl initially received favorable reviews, but it quickly lost attention due to the start of the American Civil War. After the war ended, readers who discovered the work were confused as to the identity of the author; because of the use of a pseudonym, some thought that the author was Lydia Maria Child, or abolitionist author Harriet Beecher Stowe. At the time, the book was accepted as a fictional novel. From then on, the accepted academic opinion voiced by historians, was that Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was a fictional novel written by Lydia Marie Child. While re-reading Incidents in the 1970s as part of a project to educate herself in the use of gender as a category of analysis, historian Jean Fagan Yellin became interested in the question of the text's true authorship. Over the course of a six-year effort, Yellin found and used a variety of historical documents, including from the Amy Post papers at the University of Rochester, state and local historical societies, and the Horniblow and Norcom papers at the North Carolina state archives, to establish both that Harriet Jacobs was the true author of Incidents, and that the narrative was her autobiography, not a work of fiction.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: LEONAUR
• Seitenzahl: 324
• Erscheinungstermin: 27. September 2011
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 216mm x 140mm x 19mm
• Gewicht: 459g
• ISBN-13: 9780857066961
• ISBN-10: 085706696X
• Artikelnr.: 34228613