Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl — Rare Presentation Copy

This first-edition copy of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Boston, 1861) is an exceptional presentation copy given by Harriet Jacobs’s daughter, Louisa Jacobs, to Sarah R. May, wife of abolitionist Rev. Samuel May Jr., in 1886. Bound in the publisher’s original light brown beaded cloth with gilt spine, this near-fine copy remains unrestored and is accompanied by extraordinary provenance: two period obituaries for Harriet Jacobs mounted within the book, and a fourteen-page holograph letter describing Jacobs’s 1897 funeral service, including a handwritten copy of the eulogy delivered by Rev. Francis James Grimké, a leading African American minister of the era. The letter, written by Sarah Earle to Samuel May, is the only known surviving eyewitness account of Jacobs’s funeral. The Mays were close friends and supporters of the Jacobs School, a Freedmen’s school founded in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1863 by Harriet and Louisa Jacobs to educate formerly enslaved Black children—a project that embodied Harriet’s belief that Black educators were essential for community empowerment.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl stands as the most important slave narrative written by an African American woman. Whereas earlier narratives focused primarily on physical suffering and literacy, Jacobs broke new ground by centering her account on motherhood, sexual exploitation, and the unique horrors slavery inflicted on women—creating not only a vital historical document but also a foundational early work of Black feminist literature. This presentation copy is rare in original cloth, especially in such fine condition and with such extraordinary provenance linking Jacobs’s family to the abolitionist network and Black educational leadership. The accompanying funeral documentation preserves a critical, intimate moment of remembrance and adds unparalleled depth to the historical record.