Twelve Years a Slave; the Thrilling Story of a Free Colored Man, Kidnapped in Washington in 1841; Sold into Slavery, and after Twelve Years' Bondage Reclaimed by State Authority from a Cotton Plantation in Louisiana

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.