"Twelve Years a Slave" is a script intended to go with accompanying audio cassettes. It was developed for Voices of Liberty (a project of New Faces of Liberty) and was produced by the San Francisco Study Center as one of their "Cutting Edge Curriculum Materials." The story told by the script is excerpted from the 1989 edition (by Louisiana State University Press) of "Twelve Years a Slave", edited by Sue Eakin and Joseph Logsden, which was based on the original 1853 edition. Northup was a free black man in New York who was kidnapped to Washington D.C. and sold into slavery in 1841. The account is a valuable addition to the literature of slave narratives, written from the perspective of one who was both critic and chattel. On his eventual return to New York and freedom, an account of his 12 years as a slave in Louisiana was published. The title page and etchings are replicas of the originals. The text is largely original with the exception of portions identified as "narrator," which were written for this abridged version. (SLD)