4.0
Twelve Years a Slave
ByPublisher Description
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.
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.
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4.0
SamanthaJaneRN
Created 21 days agoShare
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“This has been one of the more challenging books I’ve read thus far and I’ve read many through the years. At times, I felt as if I needed a slight break, not because the reading itself was challenging, but because of the feelings this book evokes. I usually allow myself mental breaks when reading tough books but it didn’t feel appropriate here. Solomon Northup had no breaks for 12 years. I plowed through and I’m glad I did.
He is thorough and detailed in his writing. Language and publishing are clearly from a different era but anything ambiguous was easily deciphered from contextual clues. One publishing standard did confuse me until I was nearly halfway through the book. I’ll share here in case others are also unaware. Once I figured it out, I was shocked and probably even more surprised at my shock. You will see the terms “d—d” and “h—l”. More frequently the former. They stand for “damned” and “hell”. Apparently those two words are so awful in that era that they couldn’t even be printed, while, I most definitely noted that the use of the term ni**er in its full spelling was perfectly acceptable.
Probably because of my recent delve into my own ancestry, i immediately recognized with horror one of the ramifications of slavery on present day black people: ancestry. I was aware of the these problems, but perhaps not so much the sheer volume and magnitude of this. An enslaved person could carry as many different names as they had Masters. I won’t speak on all the other intricacies that make Black American ancestry difficult. Just noting one that stood out to me reading this book.
This is one that will stick with me. It is detailed but not so detailed that you are bogged down with unnecessary information. At times it left me reeling from the horror. At other times, I wanted to learn more, hear more details, know more.
I will leave this review with a quote from the man who helped free Solomon Northup. One that also feels very apt to say with our present political state. Mr Bass said,
“There’s a sin, a fearful sin, resting on this nation, that will not go unpunished forever.”
Khalisah Khairina
Created about 3 years agoShare
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Rachelle
Created almost 4 years agoShare
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Theloopyknot
Created over 5 years agoShare
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Andy Smith
Created about 7 years agoShare
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About Solomon Northup
Solomon Northup (1808–c. 1863) was a free man kidnapped into slavery in 1851. The details of his life after the publication of his acclaimed memoir are unknown.
Ira Berlin is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Maryland, College Park. His many books include The Making of African America and Many Thousands Gone, winner of the Bancroft Prize and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the W. E. B Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Ira Berlin is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Maryland, College Park. His many books include The Making of African America and Many Thousands Gone, winner of the Bancroft Prize and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the W. E. B Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Other books by Solomon Northup
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