Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave, published in 1853, stands out as an important piece of literature about slavery because it is written from the perspective of a free man who was captured and forced into bondage and who wrote in great detail about this experience after his release twelve years later. Northup’s insights into the workings of the southern slave system reveal the spiritual and physical torment slaves endured. Northup’s powerful language describing his capture, his life as a slave, and then his release helps explain why Twelve Years a Slave became one of the fastest-selling and most popular narratives of the nineteenth century. Although the authenticity and reliability of slave narratives have been frequently challenged, such narratives are recognized as essential sources