Twelve Years a Slave (Illustrated and Appendix, with Introduction)

Twelve Years a Slave (Illustrated and Appendix, with Introduction): Narrative of Solomon Northup. Now a major motion picture, directed by Steve McQueen and starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti, Lupita Nyong’o, Sarah Paulson, Brad Pitt, Alfre Woodard, and Quvenzhané Wallis, has been nominated for nine Academy Awards. About Northup: Solomon Northup was a free-born African American from New York. In 1841 he was kidnapped by slave-traders, having been enticed with a job offer as a violinist. When he accompanied his supposed employers to Washington, DC, they drugged him and sold him as a slave. He was shipped to New Orleans where he was sold to a plantation owner in Louisiana. He was held in the Red River region of Louisiana by several different owners for 12 years. He made repeated attempts to escape and get messages out of the plantation. Eventually he got news to his family. He regained his freedom in January 1853 and returned to his family in New York.