Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl is considered a slave narrative as well as an example of feminist literature. Harriet Jacobs began composing Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl while living and working at Idlewild, Willis's home on the Hudson River. Jacobs's autobiographical accounts were first published in serial form in the New York Tribune, a newspaper owned and edited by abolitionist Horace Greeley. Her reports of sexual abuse were considered too shocking for the average newspaper reader of the day, and the paper ceased publishing her account before its completion.

The narrative was designed to appeal to middle class white Christian women in the North, focusing on the impact of slavery on women's chastity and sexual virtues. Christian women could perceive how slavery was a temptation to masculine lusts and vice as well as to womanly virtues. (Wikipedia)