Twelve Years a Slave

Twelve Years a Slave is one of the most important firsthand accounts of American slavery. Solomon Northup’s narrative recounts his extraordinary experience of being kidnapped from his home in New York and sold into bondage in Louisiana, offering a vivid portrait of life under slavery and of his struggle to maintain his humanity in the face of brutality.

This Broadview Edition is based on the 1853 first edition and includes the original illustrations. It situates Northup’s narrative within the literary, historical, and political world of antebellum America, exploring its authorship, reception, and relationship to the broader tradition of slave narratives. The appendices gather a wide range of primary sources that illuminate the world surrounding Northup’s narrative, including proslavery and antislavery writings from the period, fugitive slave laws and Underground Railroad materials, images, and contemporary responses to the narrative itself.