12 Years a Slave

“What difference is there in the color of the soul?” ― Solomon Northup, 12 Years a Slave

Twelve Years a Slave, sub-title: Narrative of Solomon Northup, 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 a memoir by Solomon Northup as told to and edited by David Wilson.

It is a slave narrative of a black man who was born free in New York state but kidnapped in Washington, D.C., sold into slavery, and kept in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana. He provided details of slave markets in Washington, D.C. and New Orleans, as well as describing at length cotton and sugar cultivation on major plantations in Louisiana.

The work was published eight years before the Civil War 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. The memoir has been adapted as two film versions, produced as the 1984 PBS television film Solomon Northup's Odyssey and the Oscar-winning 2013 film 12 Years a Slave.

A True Classic that Belongs on Every Bookshelf!

The author of Twelve Years a Slave, Solomon Northup (b. 1808) was an African American carpenter who was born free but bound into slavery later in life.

Sean Crisden is a multitalented actor and an AudioFile Earphones Award winning narrator who has recorded audiobooks in almost every genre, from science fiction to romance. He has also voiced characters in numerous video games and appeared in many commercials and films, including The Last Airbender.