Talk:Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Some necessary corrections

I just corrected some factual errors and I think I should explain why.

I dropped the middle name "Ann" since the article on "Harriet Ann Jacobs" has been moved to "Harriet Jacobs" (see note "a" there and also the move discussion).

I removed the "plantations" from the lead, since Jacobs had to face sexual harrassment while living in a town house, not on a plantation.

Most important: Her first printed texts were letters to newspapers, but those letters were not "portions of her journals". The lead has two sentences about publishing in the New York Tribune, while the text itself has only one sentence. The reference given is to p.120-121 of Yellin's biography which is lying on my desk at this moment. Pages 120-121 deal with her efforts to make Beecher Stowe tell her story (I have the hardcover edition, while the reference is to the paperback, but the page numbers are identical in both editions - I have checked). That portions of her "journals" (or her book) were published in the New York Tribune or any newspaper before being published as a book, is simply not true. The whole story of the publication can be found in Yellin's biography, pages 124-143. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rsk6400 (talk • contribs) 17:57, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

I also removed the word "young", since she was born in 1813. So in 1861, she was no longer a "young mother". --Rsk6400 (talk) 18:05, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Not a "novel"

At least since the edition of 1987 by J.F.Yellin it seems to be an established fact that the book is not a work of fiction, but a remarkably reliable autobiography. Therefore I'd suggest to remove it from the "Novels" project. --Rsk6400 (talk) 20:41, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

To-do list for improvements

I think the article has some issues: - The lede is too long, containing too many details (the history of failed attempts to publish the book)

- I doubt, if a summary of the plot really makes sense. The same information can be found in the article on the author. I'd prefer to concentrate on what she stresses and what she doesn't tell.

- The phrase "buried beneath news of the war" seems to suggest that the women (sic) of the North were no longer able to read a book because they were so busy reading newspapers. It also contradicts Yellin's findings about the popularity of Jacobs as the author of "Linda". My guess is that the causes were much more complex: The abolitionist network disbanded after the war and the abolition of slavery, and white northerners wanted reconciliation with white southerners at the expense of blacks (in itself a very complex process).

- The paragraph on the Fugitive Slave Law doesn't match the headline of the section. Half of it doesn't refer to the book. --Rsk6400 (talk) 05:53, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

- The section African-American literary and historiographic canons says that Incidents is a novel. Then, it says that Incidents is a "novel or historiograph[y]". Incidents is neither. The section is based on a 9-pages essay written in 1989 which - according to its title - is only marginally connected with Incidents, and on a book by Angela Davis, the page numbers of which are not given. So it is not easy to verify the content of the section. Moreover, although Jacobs talks about rape, rape is not central in her book (the main thread of the story is about Jacobs narrowly escaping the sexual relationship Norcom wants to force upon her). Finally, the whole section is very vague, neither naming modern authors influenced by Jacobs nor detailing ways in which the canon was influenced. My suggestion: It should be improved or deleted. --Rsk6400 (talk) 08:06, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Stowe's reaction?

When Jacobs suggested to Stowe that Stowe transform her story into a book, Jacobs perceived Stowe's reaction as a racist insult...

But what was this reaction by Stowe? Valetude (talk) 18:24, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

The story is a bit complicated, it is given in more detail in the article on Harriet Jacobs#Writing of the manuscript. Rsk6400 (talk) 19:02, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Valetude, sorry for undoing your edit. But it was not "clarifying". It got the facts wrong (Jacobs's first idea was not that Louisa should go to Britain, but that Stowe should write the story), it was also unclear (who is "the slave woman" - Jacobs or the female slave in general ?). Most of all: "periodic need to conceal births" - Why should they have done that ? How can a woman periodically conceal births ? Where is your source ? Rsk6400 (talk) 05:15, 27 April 2020 (UTC)