Harriet Jacobs risked everything to escape slavery, protect her children, and reveal the particular horrors endured by enslaved women. Published under the name Linda Brent, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl recounts Jacobs's childhood in slavery, the relentless sexual harassment she endured from her enslaver, and her determination to prevent him from controlling the lives of her children. Her account exposes forms of exploitation and abuse that were often omitted from nineteenth-century slave narratives. To avoid capture, Jacobs concealed herself for nearly seven years in a tiny attic space above a storeroom in her grandmother's house. From there, she could occasionally observe her children but could neither stand upright nor safely reveal that she was nearby. Her eventual escape to the North brought physical freedom, but not immediate security for herself or her family. Edited by abolitionist writer L. Maria Child and first published in 1861, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl combines personal testimony with a direct appeal to readers to confront the cruelty and moral corruption of slavery. Jacobs writes candidly about motherhood, sexual coercion, resistance, racial prejudice, and the difficult choices forced upon women denied control over their own bodies and families. One of the most important firsthand accounts of American slavery, this powerful narrative remains essential reading in African American history, women's history, abolitionist literature, and American autobiography.