This unforgettable memoir was the basis for the Academy Award-winning film 12 Years a Slave. This is the true story of Solomon Northup, who was born and raised as a freeman in New York. He lived the American dream, with a house and a loving family - a wife and two kids. Then one day he was drugged, kidnapped, and sold into slavery in the deep south. These are the true accounts of his twelve hard years as a slave - many believe this memoir is even more graphic and disturbing than the film. His extraordinary journey proves the resiliency of hope and the human spirit despite the most grueling and formidable of circumstances.

The basis for the Academy Award(R)-winning movie!
A moving, vital testament to one of slavery's 'many thousand gone' who retained his humanity in the bowels of degradation. -- Saturday Review Born a free man in New York State in 1808, Solomon Northup was kidnapped in Washington, DC, in 1841. He spent the next 12 harrowing years of his life as a slave on a Louisiana cotton plantation. During this time he was frequently abused and often afraid for his life. After regaining his freedom in 1853, Northup decided to publish this gripping autobiographical account of his captivity.
As an educated man, Northup was able to present an exceptionally detailed and accurate description of slave life and plantation society. Indeed, this book is probably the fullest, most realistic picture of the peculiar institution during the three decades before the Civil War. Moreover, Northup tells his story both from the viewpoint of an outsider, who had experienced 30 years of freedom and dignity in the United States before his capture, and as a slave, reduced to total bondage and submission. Very few personal accounts of American slavery were written by slaves with a similar history.
Published in 1853, Northup's book found a ready audience and almost immediately became a bestseller. Aside from its vivid depiction of the detention, transportation, and sale of slaves, Twelve Years a Slave is admired for its classic accounts of cotton and sugar production, its uncannily precise recall of people, times, and places, and the compelling details that re-create the daily routine of slaves in the Gulf South. 7 illustrations. Index.

(R)

Solomon Northup's memoir written in 1853 and now an award winning major motion picture. Mr. Northup recounts his powerful life story of being born a free man in New York, kidnapped and forced into slavery for twelve years and then freed and reunited with his wife and children.

12 YEARS A SLAVE: NARRATIVE OF SOLOMON NORTHUP, A CITIZEN OF NEW-YORK, KIDNAPPED IN WASHINGTON CITY IN 1841 AND RESCUED IN 1853, FROM A COTTON PLANTATION NEAR THE RED RIVER IN LOUISIANA.

A moving, vital testament to one of slavery's many thousands gone who retained his humanity in the depths of degradation. It is also a chilling insight into the peculiar institution.
-Saturday Review

Now the major motion picture that won the 2014 Academy Award for Best Picture, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, and Lupita Nyong'o, and directed by Steve McQueen

Perhaps the best written of all the slave narratives, Twelve Years a Slave is a harrowing memoir about one of the darkest periods in American history. It recounts how Solomon Northup, born a free man in New York, was lured to Washington, D.C., in 1841 with the promise of fast money, then drugged and beaten and sold into slavery. He spent the next twelve years of his life in captivity on a Louisiana cotton plantation.

After his rescue, Northup published this exceptionally vivid and detailed account of slave life. It became an immediate bestseller and today is recognized for its unusual insight and eloquence as one of the very few portraits of American slavery produced by someone as educated as Solomon Northup, or by someone with the dual perspective of having been both a free man and a slave.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Unabridged value reproduction of Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, including the six original images, offered here for chump change. He was born free, kidnapped into slavery, and made his way back to freedom. This is his voice.

Northup describes with stark detail his process into slavery through Washington D.C., The voices of patriotic representatives boasting of freedom and equality, and the rattling of the poor slave's chains, almost commingled. A slave pen within the very shadow of the Capitol

Twelve Years a Slave is his inspirational life that was made into the 2014 Best Picture, and now this book is offered in an unabridged, affordably printed volume.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. 4
CHAPTER II. 7
CHAPTER III. 10
CHAPTER IV. 15
CHAPTER V. 18
CHAPTER VI. 22
CHAPTER VII. 26
CHAPTER VIII. 31
CHAPTER IX. 35
CHAPTER X. 39
CHAPTER XI. 43
CHAPTER XII. 48
CHAPTER XIII. 53
CHAPTER XIV. 57
CHAPTER XV. 62
CHAPTER XVI. 67
CHAPTER XVII. 71
CHAPTER XVIII. 75
CHAPTER XIX. 79
CHAPTER XX. 84
CHAPTER XXI. 87
CHAPTER XXII. 95
APPENDIX END NOTES. 99

Twelve Years a Slave (1853) is a memoir and slave narrative by Solomon Northup. Northup, a black man who was born free in New York, details his kidnapping in Washington, D.C. and subsequent sale into slavery. After having been kept in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana by various masters, Northup was able to write to friends and family in New York, who were able to secure his release.

Twelve Years a Slave (Originally published in 1853 with the sub-title: Narrative of Solomon Northup, a citizen of New-York, kidnapped in Washington city in 1841, and rescued in 1853, from a cotton plantation near the Red River in Louisiana) is the written work of Solomon Northup; a man who was born free, but was bound into slavery later in life. Northup's account describes the daily life of slaves in Bayou Beof, their diet, the relationship between the master and slave, the means that slave catchers used to recapture them and the ugly realities that slaves suffered. Northup's slave narrative is comparable to that of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Ann Jacobs or William Wells Brown, and there are many similarities. Scholars reference this work today; one example is Jesse Holland, who referred to him in an interview given on January 20, 2009 on Democracy.now. He did so because Northup's extremely detailed description of Washington in 1841 helps the neuromancers understand the location of some slave markets, and is an important part of understanding that African slaves built many of the monuments in Washington, including the Capitol and part of the original Executive Mansion. The book, which was originally published in 1853, tells the story of how two men approached him under the guise of circus promoters who were interested in his violin skills. They offered him a generous but fair amount of money to work for their circus, and then offered to put him up in a hotel in Washington D.C. Upon arriving there he was drugged, bound, and moved to a slave pen in the city owned by a man named James Burch, which was located in the Yellow House, which was one of several sites where African Americans were sold on the National Mall in DC. Another was Robey's Tavern; these slave markets were located between what are now the Department of Education and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, within view of the Capitol, according to researcher Jesse Holland, and Northup's own account 1]. Burch would coerce Northup into making up a new past for himself, one in which he had been born as a slave in Georgia. Burch told Northup that if he were ever to reveal his true past to another person he would be killed. When Northup continually asserts that he is a freeman of New York, Burch violently whips him until the paddle breaks and Rathburn insists on Burch to stop. Northup mentions different kind of owners that Northup had throughout his 12 years as a slave in Louisiana, and how he suffered severely under them: being forced to eat the meager slave diet, live on the dirt floor of a slave cabin, endure numerous beatings, being attacked with an axe, whippings and unimaginable emotional pain from being in such a state. One temporary master he was leased to was named Tibbeats; the man tried to kill him with an axe, but Northup ended up whipping him instead. Finally the book discusses how Northup eventually ended up winning back his freedom. A white carpenter from Canada named Samuel Bass arrived to do some work for Northup's current owner, and after conversing with him, Northup realized that Bass was quite different from the other white men he had met in the south; he said he stood out because he was openly laughed at for opposing the sub-human arguments slavery was based on. It was to Bass that Northup finally confided his story, and ultimately Bass would deliver the letters back to Northup's wife that would start the legal process of earning him his freedom back. This was no small matter, for if they had been caught, it could easily have resulted in their death, as Northup says.

New York Times and USA Today Bestseller Golden Globe Winner for Best Drama In this enhanced/authenticated edition by Dr. Sue Eakin of the riveting true slave narrative that reads like a novel, you are transported to 1840's New York, Washington, D.C., and Louisiana to experience the kidnapping and twelve years of bondage of Solomon Northup, a free man of color. TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE, published in 1853, was an immediate bombshell in the national debate over slavery leading up to the Civil War. It validated Harriett Beecher Stowe's fictional account of Southern slavery in Uncle Tom's Cabin, which significantly changed public opinion in favor of abolition. Now a major motion picture by Director Steve McQueen (produced by Brad Pitt), you can sync this e-book with our Movie Tie-in Audiobook performed by Oscar and Emmy winner Louis Gossett, Jr. Northup's harrowing true story was authenticated from decades of research by award-winning historian and journalist Dr. Sue Eakin, who rediscovered the narrative in 1931 as an adolescent and made it her life's work. Dr. Eakin's enhanced e-book includes the original narrative plus over 100 pages of fascinating new background information based on her research and photos. A portion of proceeds from this book supports organizations fighting modern-day slavery in the form of human trafficking. To enhance your book and movie experience see our website listed in the e-book's sample pages, where you'll find instructions for downloading your free PDF Collector's Extra for your library. SYNOPSIS: Hard working Solomon Northup, an educated free man of color in 1841, enjoys family life with his wife and three children in Saratoga, New York. He delights his community with his fiddle playing and has positive expectations of all he meets. When he is deceived by circus promoters to accompany them to a musical gig in the nation's capital, his joyful life takes an unimaginable turn. He awakens in shackles to find he has been drugged, kidnapped and bound for the slave block in D.C. After Solomon is shipped a thousand miles to New Orleans, he is assigned his slave name and quickly learns that the mere utterance of his true origin or rights as a freeman are certain to bring severe punishment or death. While he endures the brutal life of a slave in Louisiana's isolated Bayou Boeuf plantation country, he must learn how to play the system and plot his escape home. For 12 years, his fine mind captures the reality of slavery in stunning detail, as we learn about the characters that populate plantation society and the intrigues of the bayou - from the collapse of a slave rebellion resulting in mass hangings due to traitorous slave Lew Cheney, to the tragic abuse of his friend Patsey because of Mrs. Epps' jealously of her husband's sexual exploitation of his pretty young slave. When Solomon finally finds a sympathizing friend who risks his life to secret a letter to the North, a courageous rescue attempt ensues that could either compound Solomon's suffering, or get him back to the arms of his family. REVIEWS - Below are excerpts from the original 1853 reviews following publication of the narrative: ...the extraordinary narrative of Solomon Northup is the most remarkable book that was ever issued from the American press. - Detroit Tribune It's truth is far greater than fiction. - Frederick Douglass, writer, orator, former slave and abolitionist CONTEMPORARY COMMENTARY: I can never read his account of his days in slavery, of his independence of spirit, of his determination to be free... without believing that it would make a difference in today's world if our contemporaries knew of such a man as Solomon Northup - Dr. John Hope Franklin, past president of the American Historical Association, best-selling author, recipient of Presidential Medal of Freedom (nation's highest civilian honor). Written to Dr. Sue Eakin.

The astonishing memoir of a free man who was sold into slavery in Louisiana where he was kept for 12 years--a powerful, riveting condemnation of slavery, and a story soon to be introduced to a new audience through a major film

Tricked by two men offering him a job as a musician in New York state in 1841, Solomon Northup was instead drugged and kidnapped. Threatened with death, Northup was forced to assume a new name and fake past. Taken to Louisiana on a disease-ridden plague ship, he was initially sold to a cotton planter. In the 12 years that followed he was sold to many different owners who treated him with varying levels of savagery, including forced labor, scant food, and numerous beatings. Eventually Northup succeeded in contacting Samuel Bass, a white carpenter whom he knew to be sympathetic to the cause of black people. Bass contacted Northup's family and together they gained the necessary paperwork to travel to Louisiana to retrieve him. Northup pressed charges against his captors but in a triumph of irony the case was heard in Washington--meaning that as a black man he could not testify against the accused (in the end they were able to countersue him.) A true-life testament to tremendous courage and tenacity in the face of unfathomable injustice, Northup's account is also of extreme interest due to the meticulous recordings of slave life. Unique in its firsthand nature, the book became a runaway bestseller.

In 1841, a 33 year-old black carpenter named Simon Northup was living with his wife and children in upstate New York. A well-known fiddle player, he was asked by two white men to accompany them to Washington DC to perform at a show. He agreed, but no sooner had he arrived than he was drugged, and shipped off to the infamous Williams Slave Pen. Northup's identity papers had disappeared, and - unable to prove his 'free' status - he was shipped to the southern 'slave states' and a life of bondage. Twelve Years A Slave tells the story of Northup's time on the plantations of the Deep South, the horrors and atrocities he suffered and observed, his time of hopelessness and the astonishing tale of his eventual release. An immediate bestseller when it was first published in 1853, the book is now an Oscar-winning film. It remains a timeless reminder of human hypocrisy; of a period when, as Northup himself states, slavery was tolerated in a nation, whose theory of government... rested on the foundation of man's inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

The basis for the Academy Award(R)-winning movie!
A moving, vital testament to one of slavery's 'many thousand gone' who retained his humanity in the bowels of degradation. -- Saturday ReviewBorn a free man in New York State in 1808, Solomon Northup was kidnapped in Washington, DC, in 1841. He spent the next 12 harrowing years of his life as a slave on a Louisiana cotton plantation. During this time he was frequently abused and often afraid for his life. After regaining his freedom in 1853, Northup decided to publish this gripping autobiographical account of his captivity.
As an educated man, Northup was able to present an exceptionally detailed and accurate description of slave life and plantation society. Indeed, this book is probably the fullest, most realistic picture of the peculiar institution during the three decades before the Civil War. Moreover, Northup tells his story both from the viewpoint of an outsider, who had experienced 30 years of freedom and dignity in the United States before his capture, and as a slave, reduced to total bondage and submission. Very few personal accounts of American slavery were written by slaves with a similar history.
Published in 1853, Northup's book found a ready audience and almost immediately became a bestseller. Aside from its vivid depiction of the detention, transportation, and sale of slaves, Twelve Years a Slave is admired for its classic accounts of cotton and sugar production, its uncannily precise recall of people, times, and places, and the compelling details that re-create the daily routine of slaves in the Gulf South. 7 illustrations. Index.

Solomon Northup was born a free man in New York State. At the age of 33 he was kidnapped in Washington D.C. and placed in an underground slave pen. Northup was transported by ship to New Orleans where he was sold into slavery. He spent the next 12 years working as a carpenter, driver, and cotton picker. This narrative reveals how Northup survived the harsh conditions of slavery, including smallpox, lashings, and an attempted hanging. Solomon Northup was among a select few who were freed from slavery. His account describes the daily life of slaves in Louisiana, their diet and living conditions, the relationship between master and slave, and how slave catchers used to recapture runaways. Northup's first person account published in 1853, was a dramatic story in the national debate over slavery that took place in the nine years leading up to the start of the American Civil War.

Adapted into the Academy-Award winning film of the same name, Twelve Years A Slave is a non-fiction memoir written by free-man and slave Solomon Northrop. Born free in New York, Solomon grows to be a skilled carpenter and violinist, becoming married and fathering three children. After being tricked into traveling to Washington, D.C., Solomon is kidnapped and sold into slavery. There, he suffers abuses and humiliations as his identity and self-worth is systematically stripped from him. The memoir chronicles his ordeals while enslaved and the horrifying physical and mental abuse inflicted on those around him. After Solomon managed to regain his freedom and publish his first-person account, Twelve Years A Slave swept across the North and invigorated anti-slavery feeling. Today, it is best known for being adapted into one of the most critically acclaimed films of all time, with numerous Oscars to its name.

This edition is carefully reconstructed from the original 1853 edition combined with the illustrations of 1856.

Twelve Years a Slave is a memoir and slave narrative by Solomon Northup, as told to and edited by David Wilson. Northup, a black man who was born free in New York, details his kidnapping in Washington, D.C. and subsequent sale into slavery. After having been kept in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana by various masters, Northup was able to write to friends and family in New York, who were able to secure his release. Northup's account provides extensive details on the slave markets in Washington, D.C. and New Orleans and describes at length cotton and sugar cultivation on major plantations in Louisiana. The work was published by Derby & Miller of Auburn, New York, soon after Harriet Beecher Stowe's best-selling novel about slavery, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), to which it lent factual support. The memoir has been adapted and produced as the 1984 PBS television movie Solomon Northup's Odyssey and the 2013 Academy Award-winning film 12 Years a Slave.

Solomon Northup's riveting memoir written in 1853 and now an award winning major motion picture. Mr. Northup recounts his powerful life story of being born a free man in New York, kidnapped and forced into slavery for twelve years and then freed and reunited with his wife and children. 12 YEARS A SLAVE: NARRATIVE OF SOLOMON NORTHUP, A CITIZEN OF NEW-YORK, KIDNAPPED IN WASHINGTON CITY IN 1841 AND RESCUED IN 1853, FROM A COTTON PLANTATION NEAR THE RED RIVER IN LOUISIANA. A moving, vital testament to one of slavery's many thousands gone who retained his humanity in the depths of degradation. It is also a chilling insight into the peculiar institution. -Saturday Review

The Norton Critical Edition also includes:
- The illustrations printed in the original book.
- Contemporary sources (1853--62), among them newspaper accounts of Northup's kidnapping and ordeal and commentary by Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Thomas W. MacMahon.
- A Genealogy of Secondary Sources (1880-2015) presenting twenty-four voices spanning three centuries on the memoir's major themes. Contributors include George Washington Williams, Marion Wilson Starling, Kenneth Stampp, Robert B. Stepto, Trish Loughran, and David Fiske, Clifford W. Brown, Jr., and Rachel Seligman, among others.
- The 2013 film adaptation--12 Years a Slave--fully considered, with criticism and major reviews of the film as well as Henry Louis Gates's three interviews with its director, Steve McQueen.
- A Chronology and Selected Bibliography.

Solomon Northup was born a free man in New York State. At the age of 33 he was kidnapped in Washington d.c. and placed in an underground slave pen. Northup was transported by ship to New Orleans where he was sold into slavery. He spent the next 12 years working as a carpenter, driver, and cotton picker. This narrative reveals how Northup survived the harsh conditions of slavery, including smallpox, lashings, and an attempted hanging.

Solomon Northup was among a select few who were freed from slavery. His account describes the daily life of slaves in Louisiana, their diet and living conditions, the relationship between master and slave, and how slave catchers used to recapture runaways. Northup's first person account published in 1853, was a dramatic story in the national debate over slavery that took place in the nine years leading up to the start of the American Civil War.

This case laminate collector's edition includes a Victorian inspired dust-jacket.

Solomon Northup was born a free black man in upstate New York in 1808. By 1841, he had become a husband, a father, a raftsman, and a talented fiddle-player. That year, while his family was away, he agreed to accompany two men to Washington DC, on what he thought would be a brief trip performing for a circus. Instead, these new employers turned out to be con men, and Northup was drugged, kidnapped, and sold into slavery. Northup was transported to New Orleans and remained a slave for the next twelve years, working for a number of masters in Louisiana-some brutal, some kind. Although Northup never stopped longing for home and thinking about how he could escape, it seemed impossible to trust anyone with the facts of his life. He remained a slave for a dozen years, until he finally met a Canadian abolitionist who was able to get a letter to his family and eventually gained his freedom. After his release, Northup told his story to David Wilson, an upstate New York-based white lawyer and legislator. Northup's memoir, edited by Wilson, was published in 1853 as Twelve Years A Slave. Northup's story and his firsthand observations of plantation life and the cruel reality of slavery make this book an important document of the American south and American history.

DISCOVER A TALE OF UNIMAGINABLE ADVERSITY

Twelve Years a Slave tells the story of Solomon Northup, a free-born man of colour who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the American South in 1841. His true tale of captivity, torture and abuse brings to life the unimaginable evils of slavery in a time when it was yet to be outlawed. Equal parts slave, travel, and spiritual narrative, Twelve Years A Slave reveals Northup to be a person of astonishing strength and wisdom.

An insightful introduction by David Fiske reveals the world into which Northup was born, the kidnapping phenomenon to which he fell victim, and the legacy of slavery today.

With a new introduction, Northup's memoir reveals the living truth of slavery, poverty and racism in a world set apart from elite metropolitan lifestyles.

The 1853 memoir and slave narrative by Solomon Northup as told to and written by David Wilson. Northup, a black man who was born free in New York, relates his tale, of being tricked to go to Washington, D.C., where he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the Deep South. He was in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana before smuggling information to friends and family in New York, who in turn secured his release with the aid of the state. Northup's account provides extensive details on the slave markets in Washington, D.C. and New Orleans, and describes the cotton and sugar cultivation and slave treatment on major plantations in Louisiana.

Foundations of Black Science Fiction. New forewords and fresh introductions give long-overdue perspectives on significant, early Black proto-sci-fi and speculative fiction authors who wrote with natural justice and civil rights in their hearts, their voices reaching forward to the writers of today. The series foreword is by Dr Sandra Grayson.