SOURCE: "Lydia Maria Child and the Endings to Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl," in American Literature, Vol. 64, No. 2, June, 1992, pp. 255-72

In the essay that follows, Mills studies the influence of Lydia Maria Child (abolitionist and editor of Incidents) on Jacobs's writing and on the book's structure and content.

In a letter to Harriet Jacobs written prior to the publication of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Lydia Maria Child suggested a significant revision: "I think the last Chapter, about John Brown, had better be omitted. It does not naturally come into your story, and the M.S. is already too long. Nothing can be so appropriate to end with, as the death of your grand-mother."¹ Child's advice is especially intriguing in light of her own involvement in the John Brown affair; just over a week after his capture on 18 October...