"A moving, vital testament." -Saturday Review
"An incredible document, amazingly told and structured. Tough, but
riveting.-Rachel Kushner
"The best firsthand account of slavery." -James McPherson
Twelve Years a Slave (1853) is considered to be be one of the most
riviting and important documents recounting slavery in the United
States. It is the heart-rending memoir of a free black man who is taken
hostage and sold into slavery in a Louisiana plantation, his twelve
years of bondage, and his remarkable escape to freedom. Since its
publication, this classic has become a historical reference for its
salient of depiction of life as a slave in the pre-Civil War deep south
of the United States. More recently the book's popularity has soared due
to the 2014 Academy Award winning motion picture.
Northup's memoir begins during his early life as a free black man in
Upstate New York. He was a father of three children, a farmer,
lumberjack, and a skillful musician. When two white men approached
Northup about a well-paid job playing his violin in a circus, he
accepted. They traveled to New York City, then Washington D.C, where
after a day of celebrating his good fortunes with the two men he was
drugged, and chained in a slave pen. Imprisoned by the ruthless
slave-trader James Burch, he was brutally beaten and eventually sent by
boat to New Orleans, Louisiana. Eventually Northup was sold to a
merciful plantation owner, and valued for his hard work, and gentle
spirit. Due to his master's eventual financial hardships, Northup was
sold again and again in a succession of brutal masters. With his
tenacious sense of hope and goodwill he perseveres through twelve years
of cruelty until his remarkable rescue from slavery and back to his
freedom in New York. With its great message of hope, Twelve Years a
Slave is one of America's great literary declarations of the power of
the human spirit.
With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript,
this edition of Twelve Years a Slave is both modern and readable.
