Skip to content
Your Trusted NYC Bookstore for More Than 40 Years ∙ Now Offering Art Supplies!
Your Trusted NYC Bookstore for More Than 40 Years ∙ Now Offering Art Supplies!

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Modern Library Torchbearers)

ISBN 9780593230367

Original price $13.50 - Original price $13.50
Original price
$13.50
$13.50 - $13.50
Current price $13.50

The unflinching nineteenth-century autobiography that broke the silence on the psychosexual exploitation of Black women—with an introduction by Tiya Miles, author of All That She Carried and National Book Award finalist

“[A] crowning achievement . . . [Jacobs] remodeled the forms of the black slave narrative and the white female sentimental novel to create a new literary form—a narrative at once black and female.” —Henry Louis Gates, Jr., The New York Times  

In clear and unshrinking prose, Harriet Jacobs—writing under the pseudonym Linda Brent—relates the story of her girlhood and adolescence as a slave in North Carolina and her eventual escape: a bildungsroman set in the complex terrain of a chauvinist, white supremacist society. Resolutely addressing women readers, rather than men, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl seeks to make white women understand how the threat of sexual violence shapes the lives of enslaved Black women and children. Equal parts brave and searing, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is a triumph of American literature.

The Modern Library Torchbearers series features women who wrote on their own terms, with boldness, creativity, and a spirit of resistance.
AMERICAN INDIAN STORIES • THE AWAKENING • THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY • THE HEADS OF CERBERUS • LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET • LOVE, ANGER, MADNESS • PASSING • THE RETURN OF THE SOLDIER • THERE IS CONFUSION • THE TRANSFORMATION OF PHILIP JETTAN • VILLETTE

Return & Refund

Books: Return within 7 days for store credit, excluding shipping costs.

Non-Book Items:

  • In-Person Purchases: Store credit or exchange within 14 days.
  • Online Purchases: Full refund within 14 days (shipping excluded).

Exceptions: Textbooks, course packs, and lab manuals are final sale unless a class is dropped within the first 4 weeks from the start of the term with proof of dropping the class.

All Returns: Items must be in original condition with tags/packaging. A receipt is required for in-person refunds.

Read our full Return and Refund Policy.

Shipping & Pickup
  • Most in-stock items are processed and shipped through USPS within 72 hours (excluding weekends and holidays) after receiving your order confirmation email. You will receive another notification when your order has shipped.
  • Shipping charges and estimated delivery times will be calculated and displayed at checkout based on the weight of your order and the destination.
  • Pickup from 939 Lexington Avenue is available for most in-stock items.
  • Read our full Shipping Policy.