This exciting new addition to the Critical Insights series explores Solomon Northup’s 1853 oral memoir through various perspectives including those of race, class, history, biography, psychology, and sociology, to name a few. Reception of this work historically and into the modern day as a piece of writing and as later adaptations for television and film is considered in depth.  

The story’s effectiveness as a literary work is analyzed and further contrasted with other notable writings concerning slavery such as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (to which it bears intriguing similarities), and is set in the context of the American abolitionist movement and later movements for civil rights in the United States.

In the introductory essay, volume editor Robert C. Evans summarizes the essays contained in this volume and provides guidance for readers in pinpointing particular topics of interest. The introductory essay is followed by a collection of Critical Context essays intended to view slavery in literature through a critical lens from a historical vantage point.

The introduction is followed by the Critical Context section of the book which contains the following essays:

• Solomon Northup as a “Driver” in the Narrative and Film Versions of Twelve Years a Slave, Robert C. Evans
• Twelve Years a Slave: Reception, Critical Reputation, and Uses, Laurence W. Mazzeno
• Truth, Trauma, and Technique: Narrative Strategies in Twelve Years a Slave, Nicolas Tredell
• High Style and Vernacular: Contrasting Languages in Twelve Years a Slave and Barracoon, Nicolas Tredell

Northup’s narrative is further examined within a collection of Critical Readings in terms of its reception in its own day and later, its rediscovery by scholars, its adaptations for television and film, its relevance to the history of American slavery, and its narrative authority. 

The Critical Readings section contains the following essays:

• The Never-ending Quest for Authenticity: Validating the Lived Experience of Solomon Northup, Melinda Knight
• Narrative Authority in Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave, Edwin Wong
• “What difference is there in the color of the soul?”: The Practical Discourse Around Race and Slavery in Twelve Years a Slave, Matthew M. Thiele
• “Without the pale of humanity”: The Dehumanizing Effects of American Chattel Slavery in Twelve Years a Slave, Matthew M. Thiele
• Missing Children: A Black Father’s Love in Twelve Years a Slave, Jericho Williams
• The Academic Response to Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, Laurence W. Mazzeno
• Aspects of Literary Style and Cinematic Adaptation in 12 Yearsa Slave, Christopher Baker
• Literary Excellence in the Screenplay for Steve McQueen’s Film 12 Years a Slave, Robert C. Evans
• The Hanging Scene in Steve McQueen’s Film 12 Years a Slave, Jordan Bailey