SOURCE: "Written by Herself Harriet Jacobs' Slave Narrative," in American Literature, Vol. 53, No. 3, November, 1981, pp. 479-86.

In the following seminal study, Yellin reveals the existence of a "cache of [Jacobs's letters" that attests to the authenticity of Incidents, establishes Jacobs as the author, and illuminates the editorial role of Lydia Maria Child. This discovery, Yellin emphasizes, transforms "a questionable slave narrative into a well-documented pseudonymous autobiography."]

I

Your proposal to me has been thought over and over again, but not without some most painful remembrance. Dear Amy, if it was the life of a heroine with no degradation associated with it! Far better to have been one of the starving poor of Ireland whose bones had to bleach on the highways than to have been a slave with the curse of slavery stamped upon yourself and children. .. . I have tried for the last two years to conquer . . . [my...