About the book
Born free in New York State, Solomon Northup was a carpenter and violinist in Saratoga Springs when two men offered him well-paid work as a musician with a traveling circus. In Washington, D.C. he was drugged, kidnapped and sold into slavery, and he spent 12 years enslaved on Louisiana plantations before he secretly got word to his family and friends back home, who won his release with help from the state. His narrative, told to and edited by David Wilson, describes the slave markets of Washington and New Orleans and cotton and sugar growing in detail. Dedicated to Harriet Beecher Stowe, it sold 30,000 copies and later became the 2013 film 12 Years a Slave, a Best Picture winner.
Ryan Holiday named it among his best book recommendations of 2012, one of two important slave memoirs he read that year and strongly recommended.
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This book has 1 recommendation
Ryan Holiday (Founder/Brass Check)
I read two important memoirs from slaves as well, and strongly recommend 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup and A Slave in the White House about Paul Jennings.
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