With this novel, Bernardo Guimarães became very famous throughout that country, even said to be admired by Brazil's last Emperor Dom Pedro II.

In 1976, a Brazilian telenovela adaptation produced by Rede Globo was titled Escrava Isaura.

The title character is so pale-skinned that she is "almost white", making her the Brazilian equivalent of Eliza, from Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Meanwhile, she suffers greatly at the hands of Leôncio Almeida, the owner of a plantation and main villain in the plot, who wants to make her a concubine.

She even becomes briefly engaged to the humpback dwarf Melchior and almost marries him to avoid prostitution, before Álvaro comes in her aid.