Staff Pick
This novel must be read in the context of its own time. Looking at the book with present-day eyes, it seems to contain not characters but caricatures. The characters in this book became larger than life over time, and a series of emotions attach to them that were not intended in the beginning. Beautiful and poignant, Uncle Tom's Cabin changed history. Upon meeting the author, Abraham Lincoln said, "So you're the little lady who wrote the book that made this great war." She replied, "I did not write it. God wrote it. I merely did his dictation." While most of the book is painful to read, it is a sprawling story full of amazing characters and horrific events. It is a "slice of life" that we, as modern readers, can never truly understand, but it is well worth the uncomfortable reading in order to honor those who lived it. Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Easily the most controversial antislavery novel written in antebellum America, and one of the best-selling books of the nineteenth century, Uncle Tom's Cabin is often credited with intensifying the sectional conflict that led to the Civil War. In his introduction, David Bromwich places Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel in its Victorian contexts and reminds us why it is an enduring work of literary and moral imagination. The John Harvard Library text follows the first American edition, published by John P. Jewett and Company.
Synopsis
Easily the most controversial antislavery novel written in antebellum America, and one of the best-selling books of the nineteenth century, Uncle Tom's Cabin is often credited with intensifying the sectional conflict that led to the Civil War. In his introduction, David Bromwich places Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel in its Victorian contexts and reminds us why it is an enduring work of literary and moral imagination. The John Harvard Library text follows the first American edition, published by John P. Jewett & Company.
About the Author
<>David Bromwichis Sterling Professor of <>English at Yale Universityand the author of Hazlitt: The Mind of a Critic.