EXCEPTIONAL EDITION
This unique book contains two exceptional slave narratives:
Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Ann Jacobs.
Twelve Years a Slave (1853) is a memoir and slave narrative by Solomon Northup (1808-1863?).
Northup, a black man who was born free in New York state, details his being tricked to go to Washington, D.C., where he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the Deep South. After having been kept in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana by various masters, Northup was able to write to friends and family in New York, who in turn secured his release with the aid of the state.
Northup's captivating and terrifying narrative provides extensive details on the slave markets in Washington, D.C. and New Orleans, and describes at length cotton and sugar cultivation and slave treatment on major plantations in Louisiana.
This work published soon after Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1852), to which it lent factual support, was an instant bestseller in its own right.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) is an autobiography by a young mother and fugitive slave, Harriet Ann Jacobs, who used the pen name Linda Brent.
The book documents Jacobs' life as a slave and how she gained freedom for herself and for her children. Jacobs contributed to the genre of slave narrative . She explores the struggles and sexual abuse that female slaves faced on plantations as well as their efforts to practice motherhood and protect their children when their children might be sold away. Jacob's book is addressed to white women in the North who do not fully comprehend the evils of slavery. She makes direct appeals to their humanity to expand their knowledge and influence their thoughts about slavery as an institution.
These outstanding stories are must-read of American litterature.