Twelve Years a Slave

Resource Information

The work Twelve Years a Slave represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Manchester City Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Twelve Years a Slave

Statement of responsibility

Solomon Northup

Creator

• Northup, Solomon

Contributor

• Overdrive Inc

Subject

• African American Nonfiction
• Biography & Autobiography
• History
• Nonfiction

Language

eng

Summary

The harrowing true story that inspired the critically acclaimed filmThe son of a freed slave, Solomon Northup lived the first thirty years of his life as a free man in upstate New York. In the spring of 1841, he was offered a job: a short-term, lucrative engagement as a violinist in a traveling circus. It was a trap. In Washington, DC, Northup was drugged, kidnapped, and sold into slavery. He spent the next twelve years on plantations in Louisiana, enduring backbreaking labor, unimaginable violence, and inhumane treatment at the hands of cruel masters, until a kind stranger helped to win his release. His account of those years is a shocking, unforgettable portrait of America's most insidious historical institution as told by a man who experienced it firsthand.Published shortly after Harriet Beecher Stowe's abolitionist classic Uncle Tom's Cabin, Northup's memoir became a bestseller in 1853. With its eloquent depiction of life before and after bondage, Twelve Years a Slave was a unique and effective entry into the national debate over slavery. Rediscovered in the 1960s and now the inspiration for a major motion picture, Northup's poignant narrative gives readers an invaluable glimpse into a shameful chapter of American history

Nature of contents

dictionaries