# Is "Twelve Years a Slave" by Solomon Northup a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup (Derby and Miller, 1853) is identified by: The title page reads 'Auburn: Derby and Miller, 1853,' and the true first printing carries no mention of a print-run count ('___ Thousand') at the head of the title page, a phrase later printings added as sales climbed toward 30,000 copies within three years.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The title page reads 'Auburn: Derby and Miller, 1853,' and the true first printing carries no mention of a print-run count ('___ Thousand') at the head of the title page, a phrase later printings added as sales climbed toward 30,000 copies within three years
- The first edition is bound in the publisher's brown cloth with the spine lettered in gilt and the boards stamped in blind, over yellow-coated endpapers
- It is illustrated with seven full-page plates, including a frontispiece portrait of Northup, and opens with a dedication to Harriet Beecher Stowe and an editor's preface by David Wilson
- Publisher imprint reads Derby and Miller
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Solomon Northup |
| Publisher | Derby and Miller |
| Year | 1853 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The title page reads 'Auburn: Derby and Miller, 1853,' and the true first printing carries no mention of a print-run count ('___ Thousand')… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
The title page reads 'Auburn: Derby and Miller, 1853,' and the true first printing carries no mention of a print-run count ('___ Thousand') at the head of the title page, a phrase later printings added as sales climbed toward 30,000 copies within three years. The first edition is bound in the publisher's brown cloth with the spine lettered in gilt and the boards stamped in blind, over yellow-coated endpapers. It is illustrated with seven full-page plates, including a frontispiece portrait of Northup, and opens with a dedication to Harriet Beecher Stowe and an editor's preface by David Wilson.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Because the book sold briskly, an advertisement in The Liberator dated 26 August 1853 -- barely a month after publication -- already announced the 'Fourteenth Thousand' printing, credited jointly to Derby and Miller (Auburn) and the affiliated house of Derby, Orton and Mulligan (Buffalo); further printings marked 'Twentieth Thousand' followed, and the stereotype plates remained in use under the successor firm Miller, Orton and Mulligan through the mid-1850s as sales climbed toward 30,000 copies. Any copy whose title page states a print-run total ('___ Thousand') is a later printing, not the true first.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Twelve Years a Slave* by Solomon Northup a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/twelve-years-a-slave
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.