Twelve Years a Slave
May 2016 · Sold by Simon and Schuster
Ebook
216
Pages
family_home
Eligible
info
About this ebook
Packaged in handsome, affordable trade editions, Clydesdale Classics is a new series of essential literary works. It features literary phenomena with influence and themes so great that, after their publication, they changed literature forever. From the musings of literary geniuses like Mark Twain in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to the striking personal narrative of Harriet Jacobs in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, this new series is a comprehensive collection of our history through the words of the exceptional few.
The original story for the 2013 Academy Award–winning film Twelve Years a Slave is the autobiographical account of Solomon Northup—an African American man born free in New York State who is tricked, kidnapped, taken to Washington, DC, and sold into slavery. After being drugged, bound, and denied his rights as a free man, Northup is sold and transported to slave owners in New Orleans.
Here he experiences the true horrors of the slave trade—intense cruelty, beatings, sickness, negligence, barbarism, starvation. Throughout the book’s melancholic prose, Northup recounts these horrific experiences in excruciating and agonizing detail. In one of the book’s passages, he states: “My sufferings I can compare to nothing else than the burning agonies of hell!” For the next twelve years, Northup kept his identity hidden only to himself and remained imprisoned in this state of bondage.
Originally published eight years before the Civil War and written in the same vein as the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, this groundbreaking work gave Americans from the north razor-sharp, firsthand insight into the tragedies that were occurring in the South. Still today, Northup’s story is widely studied and reprinted, giving its readers a glimpse into a painful part of our country’s past.
The original story for the 2013 Academy Award–winning film Twelve Years a Slave is the autobiographical account of Solomon Northup—an African American man born free in New York State who is tricked, kidnapped, taken to Washington, DC, and sold into slavery. After being drugged, bound, and denied his rights as a free man, Northup is sold and transported to slave owners in New Orleans.
Here he experiences the true horrors of the slave trade—intense cruelty, beatings, sickness, negligence, barbarism, starvation. Throughout the book’s melancholic prose, Northup recounts these horrific experiences in excruciating and agonizing detail. In one of the book’s passages, he states: “My sufferings I can compare to nothing else than the burning agonies of hell!” For the next twelve years, Northup kept his identity hidden only to himself and remained imprisoned in this state of bondage.
Originally published eight years before the Civil War and written in the same vein as the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, this groundbreaking work gave Americans from the north razor-sharp, firsthand insight into the tragedies that were occurring in the South. Still today, Northup’s story is widely studied and reprinted, giving its readers a glimpse into a painful part of our country’s past.
About the author
Solomon Northup was an African American abolitionist, farmer, and professional violinist. He was a free man before he was kidnapped and forced into slavery for twelve years. He is the primary author of Twelve Years a Slave, which details the horrific miscarriages of justice and oppression that he endured. After regaining his freedom and reuniting with his family, Northup became a well-respected activist and lecturer in the abolitionist movement. In the summer of 1857, after a series of lectures in Canada, he disappeared. Neither his cause of death nor his whereabouts have ever been uncovered.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
