Solomon Northup has 4 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 4 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 33 ratings. The most-rated is Twelve Years a Slave.
Twelve Years a Slave
Summary
Official Movie Tie-in Audiobook for the Academy Award's Best Picture and Golden Globe's Best Drama winner. New York Times and USA Today Bestseller. In this riveting landmark autobiography which reads like a novel, Academy Award and Emmy winner Louis Gossett, Jr., masterfully transports us to 1840s New York, Washington, D.C., and Louisiana to experience the kidnapping and twelve years of bondage of Solomon Northup, a free man of color. Twelve Years a Slave, published in 1853, was an immediate bombshell in the national debate over slavery leading up to the Civil War. It validated Harriett Beecher Stowe’s fictional account of Southern slavery in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which had become the best-selling American book in history a few years earlier and significantly changed public opinion in favor of abolition. Experience our official movie tie-in audiobook for the award-winning motion picture, directed by Steve McQueen and starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Brad Pitt, Paul Giamatti, Michael Fassbender, and Lupita Nyong'o. This audio edition with an accompanying custom map is based on the research of Dr. Sue Eakin, the nationally recognized authority on Solomon Northup who spent a lifetime authenticating his story. Hard working Solomon Northup, an educated free man of color in 1841, enjoys family life with his wife and three children in Saratoga, New York. He delights his community with his fiddle playing and antic spirit, and has positive expectations of all he meets. When he is deceived by “circus promoters” to accompany them to a musical gig in the nation’s capital, his joyful life takes an unimaginable turn. He awakens in shackles to find he has been drugged, kidnapped and bound for the slave block in D.C. After Solomon is shipped 1,000 miles to New Orleans, he is assigned his slave name and quickly learns that the mere utterance of his true origin or rights as a freeman are certain to bring severe punishment or death. While he endures the brutal life of a slave in Louisiana’s isolated Bayou Boeuf plantation country, he must learn how to play the system and plot his escape home. For 12 years, his fine mind captures the reality of slavery in stunning detail, as we learn about the characters that populate plantation society and the intrigues of the bayou – from the collapse of a slave rebellion resulting in mass hangings due to traitorous slave Lew Cheney, to the tragic abuse of his friend Patsey because of Mrs. Epps’ jealousy of her husband’s sexual exploitation of his pretty young slave. When Solomon finally finds a sympathizing friend who risks his life to secret a letter to the North, a courageous rescue attempt ensues that could either compound Solomon’s suffering, or get him back to the arms of his family. AUTHENTICATION: Northup’s harrowing first-hand account was authenticated from decades of research by Dr. Sue Eakin, who rediscovered the original narrative as a 12-year old in 1931 and made it her life’s work. For additional audio clips, background info and images, see our website at www.12YearsASlaveBook.com. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2013 Eakin Films & Publishing (P)2013 Eakin Films & Publishing
Twelve Years a Slave
Summary
Twelve Years a Slave is an account of actual events that took place in the life of Solomon Northup, during the pre-Civil War era of the 1840s. It follows the trials and tribulations of an educated African American man that was born into freedom and later kidnapped, taken away from his family, and forced into slavery. His story brings to life a shockingly common practice that took place during those times. In his journey, Northup, who is a native of Saratoga, New York, and has a wife with three kids, gets lured into leaving his home town by two circus promoters who ask him to accompany them to Washington, D.C., while getting paid to perform at a musical gig. This trip, which he thought would only take a few days turned in to an unimaginable voyage of deceit and great misfortune. Those few days turned into 12 long years, in which Northup was placed back into slavery in the isolated plantation country of Louisiana's Bayou Boeuf where he quickly learned that the mere mention of his past freedom would result in severe punishments or possibly his own death. His story takes a drastic turn when a heroic friend risks his own life to help deliver the news of Northup's whereabouts to his wife, in order to help him regain his freedom. This heroic act could ultimately get Northup killed or help return him back home, to his family and freedom.
©2014 A.R.N. Publications (P)2014 A.R.N. Publications
Twelve Years a Slave
Summary
Details of a free man from New York state who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the deep south. The work was published eight years before the Civil War. The memoir has been adapted into two film versions.
Public Domain (P)2020 Trout Lake Media
12 Years a Slave
Summary
Solomon Northup was born in the early 1800s in New York as a free man. He lived as a free man for over 30 years, until he was tricked into moving to Washington, DC, by men offering him a job as a musician. Once he made it to DC, he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Louisiana, where he was forced to work on a plantation until he could make his escape. His family had no way of knowing where he was or if he was safe - he was on his own with no hope of escaping the circumstance. In this harrowing memoir, Northrup describes the horrific conditions he and the other slaves lived in, the ways they were mistreated by their owners and were forced to mistreat one another, and the difficulty he had making his way out of slavery and back to his family. This tale is bleak, but eye-opening to the plights of slaves in the years leading up to the Civil War. 12 Years a Slave was a fast best-seller when it was published just eight years before the Civil War, and is an integral text from the time period. This memoir was the basis for the 2013 Oscar-winning film of the same name.
©2021 Solomon Northup (P)2021 InAudio