Starred review from October 15, 2008
This masterwork stems from Pace University English professor emerita Yellin's more than 25 years of research and writing on Harriet Jacobs (181397), including her 2002 biography but beginning with her 1987 annotated edition of Jacobs's 1861 autobiographical "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself". Pathbreaking in both U.S. history and American literature, "Incidents" shunned the pattern of black men's ex-slave narratives and white women's fanciful fiction. It posted an authentic black woman's tale of slavery, sexual assault, and resistance. Jacobs repeatedly thwarted her slaveholder's advances and, rather than succumb, ultimately hid for seven years in her grandmother's cramped North Carolina attic crawl space, separated from her two children whom she could see and hear but not touch or let know she was there. With her coeditors, Yellin now provides more than 900 documents from four generations, moving from Jacobs's grandmother Molly, to her mother, Delilah, to herself and her children, Joseph and Louisa Matilda, ranging from September 1810 to April 1917. The documents are chronologically clustered in two volumes, each with six parts. Brief essays introduce each part, providing historical context and an overview of the Jacobses' lives during the time covered. Headnotes also provide context on the creation, publication, or location of documents and sometimes summarize material not yet published. The opening chronology and brief biographies of persons referenced in the documents are themselves gems. This model of documentary collecting and editing is required for every library serious about its collections on U.S. history, literature, blacks, women, or slavery.Thomas J. Davis, Arizona State Univ., Tempe
Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.