Twelve Years a Slave, first published in 1853, is a memoir and slave narrative by American 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 outstanding work was published eight years before the Civil War, soon after Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1852), to which it lent factual support.
Northup's book, dedicated to Stowe, was an instant bestseller in its own right.