Solomon Northup

"Having been born a freeman, and for more than thirty years enjoyed the blessings of liberty in a free State—and having at the end of that time been kidnapped and sold into Slavery, where I remained, until happily rescued in the month of January, 1853, after a bondage of twelve years—it has been suggested that an account of my life and fortunes would not be uninteresting to the public." -an excerpt

Twelve Years a Slave

The incredible true story of the kidnapping, enslavement, and rescue of Solomon Northup in the era before the Civil War—now a major motion picture! In 1841, Solomon Northup was a free man living in Saratoga Springs, New York, making a living as a violinist and spending his spare time with his wife and three young children. Lured to Washington, DC, with the promise of a generous sum of money, Northup finds himself drugged, beaten, and sold before he can even begin to comprehend the tragic turn his life has taken. Twelve torturous years of slavery follow, with Northup passed from owner to owner, plantation to plantation, until his eventual rescue in 1853. Following his return to New York, Northup wrote and published this extraordinary book, one of the few accounts of American slavery written from the perspective of a man who had been free before being enslaved. Lost for nearly a century, Twelve Years a Slave offers unprecedented details of the slave markets of Washington, DC, and describes the excruciating life on Southern cotton plantations. In its time, Twelve Years a Slave was a bestseller and ignited a national dialogue on slavery in the years leading up to the Civil War. Northup’s unsparing portrayal of the life of a slave captured minds and eventually divided a nation. Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

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

Iris van der zanden

I had not then learned the measure of "man's inhumanity to man," nor to what limitless extent he will go to for the love of gain.

#1 Bestseller Now a major motion picture directed by Steve McQueen and starring Brad Pitt, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Paul Giamatti 12 Years a Slave is a riveting true account of a free man captured and sold into slavery in the pre–Civil War South. Solomon Northup’s narrative explores one of the darkest times in American history and captures in vivid detail the unimaginable realities of slavery. In 1841, the educated musician Solomon Northup, a free man living in New York who is cruelly deceived by the promise of a job in Washington, is drugged, kidnapped, and sold into slavery. Once Solomon arrives in New Orleans, he is given a slave name and soon realizes that any mention of his rights as a free man is sure to bring cruel punishment or death. Denied his freedom and ripped away from his family, he spends twelve emotionally and physically gruelling years on a Louisiana cotton plantation enduring the hardships and brutalities of life as a slave. When Solomon eventually finds a sympathizing friend, a daring rescue is attempted that could either end in Solomon’s death or restore his freedom and reunite him with his family. When Solomon Northup published this harrowing account of slavery in 1853, it immediately stirred up controversy in the national debate over slavery, helping to sway public opinion in favour of abolition. His book 12 Years a Slave remains one of the most insightful, detailed, and eloquent depictions of slavery in America. It demonstrates the extraordinary resilience of one man’s spirit in the face of extreme suffering and his incredible will to survive.

Twelve Years A Slave

Ayesha ahmed

A narrative that tells the story of Northup, a freeman who was kidnapped into slavery. A sad narrative indeed, but what made it so dull was the detailed descriptions of how the sugar and cotton plantations were looked after. 
The reason to why I gave it 2 stars only was because I wanted to quit reading it more than once, the only thing that kept me reading was that I was halfway through. I very much liked the ending, but it could have been more interesting.

Describes the life of Solomon Northup, a free Black man from Saratoga, N.Y., who was kidnapped in 1841 and forced into slavery in Louisiana for twelve years.

A True Story

12 Years a Slave

Nursyuhada Zainul

Okay! Let me be honest!

So i’ve watched the movie before i read this book, and thank god, when i read the book, i get the clear & view picture in my head the pain that Platt have kept to himself for 12 years. 12 years as a slave. 

I can’t imagine how a person, or any one, just because the color, the culture, the mother-language is different, must’ve a free-letter and have to fight just to prove that one is a free-man? 

If you’re halfway through the book and you have no idea how the slavery looked like, i recommend you to watch the movie first and then only you started to read the book, you’ll get the picture. 

To conclude, everyone’s lives matter 🤍

Kidnapped into slavery in 1841, Northup spent 12 years in captivity. This autobiographical memoir represents an exceptionally detailed and accurate description of slave life and plantation society. 7 illustrations. Index.

Stefanie Sugia

"Let not those who have never been placed in like circumstances, judge me harshly. Until they have been chained and beaten - until they find themselves in the situation I was, borne away from home and family towards a land of bondage - let them refrain from saying what they would not do for liberty."

12 Years a Slave is an autobiography/memoir written by Solomon Northup about the times when freedom was taken away from him and he was turned into a slave. Solomon Northup is a freeman who lives in Saratoga, New York, with his wife and children. He's a skilled carpenter and violinist; so when one day two men offered him a high-wage job as a musician for a traveling circus, Northup doesn't hesitate and quickly agreed to it - without informing his wife who was away for work. He traveled with the two men, Brown and Hamilton. But then Northup started feeling really sick until he fell unconscious. Unfortunately, when he's awake, he found out that he was drugged and chained in the cell of a slave pen...

Read the full review here:
http://www.thebookielooker.com/2014/0...

Krishei Ralleca

"I don't want to survive, I want to live"

- Solomon Northup 

This book was such a heartbreaking book. Solomon's story was such a depressing one, I could not imagine how a human can even endure being a slave. After reading this, it made me think about the other slaves who were left to die as a slave. This book makes me grateful this generation had improved, though it's not the best, it improved nonetheless. 

Would recommend if you want to read something more serious and if you want to know more about how slaves were treated.

Giulia Pianta

This was a very sad record of slavery in the US.
Solomon’s voice in narrating 12 years of her life is very clear and the facts are well-depicted. You can tell it feels like a true testimony of his life, with no embellishments or sugar coating.

For the whole book I kept feeling so angry at the injustice faced by Solomon, and my everyone around him. While he was a free man who was kidnapped into slavery, many people around him were born as slaves and could never really escape their condition, and both situations felt so humanly wrong.

A testimony of personal strength and a telling portrait of American slavery in the pre-Civil War South. When Solomon Northup, born a free black man in Saratoga, New York, was offered a short-term job with a circus in Washington, D.C., in 1841, he jumped at the opportunity. But when he arrived, he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Louisiana. Finally, with the help of a Canadian abolitionist, he was rescued and reunited with his family in New York. In this memoir published in 1853, Northup tells the incredible story of his twelve years as a slave.

Meredith Rose

It has been on my heart to read this book for some time, and I decided to do so during Black History Month. 

Solomon Northup's narrative is absolutely heart-wrenching and difficult to read, but it is also an important reminder of the long history of struggles black people have endured. In listening to his experiences, I feel as I did when reading The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, utterly shocked and disgusted by the hypocrisy of slave traders and holders. The ability these men and women possessed to justify their biases and inhumanity is a stark reminder to consider our own attitudes and look for where we can improve.

Something I appreciate about this book is the perspective it lends on the evil of slavery as a system. Northup writes honestly about his experience as a slave, discussing in detail both owners who treated him with decency and owners who treated him most cruelly. But ultimately, he draws a definitive conclusion that no amount of "proper treatment" of a slave can make owning another human being inoffensive. These decent owners, according to Northup's account, were the exception to the rule, and despite their humanity, continually fueled an evil institution with their attitudes, money and influence. 

I am reminded never to view "decency" in slaveholding as an argument to diminish its wickedness.

Annelies Van Rossen

Pro: Solomon Northup's life, interaction with reader

Con: the harsh and inhuman conditions

I saw the movie before I read the book. I found the movie beautiful but it also left me with a heartbreaking feeling. When I came across the book in my library, I couldn't help but want to read it. The book is beautifully written. It almost makes you forget, that Solomon really lived these twelve years. As a person who grew up without slavery, I cannot for the life of me imagine how some of the slave traders or masters behave, think and justify their ways. Being glad that Solomon in the end was freed, I do continue to feel bad for all the other slaves who weren't born free and had no chance of escaping slavery. A beautiful book that makes you think.

"First published in the United States of America by Derby and Miller, 1853"--T.p. verso.

Jeremy Anderberg

Slave narratives, as a genre, gripped Northern readers in the mid-1800s. Frederick Douglass's famed narrative is still the most famous — deservedly so — but Northup's tale is equally well-written and even more dramatic. (Northup had help with the writing, but still.)

In 1841, Solomon was living a relatively good life as a free black man in New York state. He was working partly as a musician, and was offered a traveling gig from a couple of white dudes. He readily accepted, and the short version of the story is that he was drugged and sold into slavery. Just like that. Of course he tried to plead his innocence, but it was an impossible case to make once you were in the hands of slaveholders. To rub salt into the already horrendous wound, he was in Washington, D.C., a town that was supposedly the bastion of freedom:

"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!"

From there he ended up in the bayous of Louisiana, and labored for 12 years as a slave. He was not on a large plantation, but rather a smaller farm with a handful of undeserving prisoners. The real strength of the narrative is in its incredible portrayal of the daily life of a slave: what they ate (not much), how they slept (very little), the process of picking cotton (backbreaking) . . . and of course the daily threat and reality of whippings. At one heartbreaking point, Northup is even forced by his master to brandish the whip himself.

I've not even touched on the incredible story of his rescue and release, which was put into motion by the fortuitous meeting of an abolitionist carpenter who worked on Solomon's behalf at great personal risk.

To sum up, 12 Years a Slave is a great, if at times heartbreaking story. But you know that there's a happy ending! So it's a little better, I guess. Also, it's short and easy-reading. You have no excuse, so get to it.

Twelve Years a Slave, a chronicle of the amazing ordeal of a free African-American kidnapped in the north, and impressed into slavery in Louisiana, is one of the most compelling and detailed slave narratives in existence. The text and story were virtually unchallenged by Southern apologists or partisans of the era. Northup resists the urge to laud himself as an exemplary character or focus solely his own experience, giving contemporary readers a remarkable account of the lives of the slave community as a whole. As an educated man, torn from freedom and plunged into slavery, he brings into horrible and tantalizingly exact clarity the life and labor of slaves in the antebellum American South, the complex economic choices and ironic moral concessions of slaveholding, and the calamitous effect of slavery on the foundations of civilization.

sera

2.5*, the writing style is very monotonous, making it difficult to stay focused.

Twelve Years a Slave (1853) 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 in turn 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. Northup's book, dedicated to Stowe, sold 30,000 copies, making it a bestseller in its own right.

This book was such a heartbreaking book. Solomon's story was such a depressing one, I could not imagine how a human can even endure being a slave. After reading this, it made me think about the other slaves who were left to die as a slave. This book makes me grateful this generation had improved, though it's not the best, it improved nonetheless. Would recommend if you want to read something more serious and if you want to know more about how slaves were treated. 

12 Years a Slave (Movie Tie-In) (Penguin Classics)

Deux hommes abordent Solomon Northup et lui proposent de jouer du violon dans leur cirque itinérant. A peine a-t-il accepté qu'il est drogué et enlevé. Son identité effacée, il se retrouve contraint de se présenter comme un esclave de naissance. Pendant douze ans, Solomon est vendu de propriété en propriété, travaillant dans les champs de coton ou sur des chantiers de construction en Louisiane. Dormant à même le sol, affamé, fouetté, il est menacé de mort par des maîtres qui le considèrent comme un sous-homme. Seule sa volonté de fer lui permet de ne pas sombrer dans la folie, car Northup n'a qu'un objectif : survivre pour retrouver sa femme et ses trois enfants. Le récit d'un individu prêt à tout pour ne pas oublier qui il est : un homme libre. .

Melissa  Sautron 

"Twelve Years a Slave" is the story of Solomon Northup, an African American who was born free in New York in the early 1800s. In 1841, Soloman Northup was captured and forced into slavery for a period of 12 years. "Twelve Years a Slave" is a captivating narrative of the life of freedom and slavery experienced by one African American man prior to the American Civil War. The book is detailed in its account of life on a cotton and sugar plantation, and the daily routine of slave life during the first part of the 19th century.

Katie Williams

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.

Gigi V

Megan Daigle

Originally published: Auburn: Derby and Miller, 1853.

Jun Angelo Cabuguas

Jamie McHale

Chris Wilcox

Beatriz Caetano 

OliviaPadilla

C. J. Daley 

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.

Jens Madsen

Amit kumar

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.

Twelve Years a Slave

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