Twelve Years A Slave Solomon Northup; Sue Eakin And Joseph Logsdon (Eds.) History

First edition thus, with an introduction by the editors. Hardcover. xxiv (introduction)+ reproduction of the title page of the original 1853 edition+ 273 pp. with index. A tight, generally fine example, some spotting to the outer edge of the text block. In very good, lightly rubbed dust jacket, bit of tidemarking top right corner rear panel. One of the most important titles in African American history, the memoir and slave narrative of Solomon Northup, a black man born free in New York State who was tricked into going to Washington D.C. where he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the Deep South. He was enslaved in Louisiana for 12 years before he was able to word to relatives and friends in New York who, with the aid of the state, were able to secure his release. His memoir provided first hand details of the slave markets in Washington and New Orleans as well as cotton and sugar cultivation and slave life on large Louisiana plantations. Northup's account was published soon after Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" to which it lent factual support (indeed the book was dedicated to her) and became an immediate bestseller. The book fell into obscurity for nearly a century until this edition was published in 1968. Basis for the 2012 Academy Award Best Picture-winning film "Twelve Years A Slave"