#8 in History
Twelve Years a Slave
- 236
- Pages
- about 4.5 h
- Reading time
- NYT bestseller · 19 weeks on the list, peaked at #1
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Our view
Solomon Northup’s “Twelve Years a Slave” is a harrowing, clear-eyed first-hand account of a free man kidnapped and sold into slavery. Its plain record of hunger, the whip and endless labour, and of one man’s refusal to give up, makes slavery painfully concrete. Some readers come away both moved and angry. Anyone who wants to understand slavery in the United States through the words of a man who endured it should read it.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.8 across 72 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 33% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the History average of 8.0. That is how 8.3 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.8 | 12 | 17% |
| Hardcover | 8.8 | 60 | 83% |
Frequently asked
How long is Twelve Years a Slave?
It has 236 pages — shorter than 94% of the ranked books in History.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — History — with scores between 7.9 and 8.3, closest to this book.
