Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

About Uncle Tom’s Cabin

When Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published in 1852, it became an international blockbuster, selling more than 300,000 copies in the United States alone in its first year. Progressive for her time, Harriet Beecher Stowe was one of the earliest writers to offer a shockingly realistic depiction of slavery. Her stirring indictment and portrait of human dignity in the most inhumane circumstances enlightened hundreds of thousands by revealing the human costs of slavery, which had until then been cloaked and justified by the racist misperceptions of the time. Langston Hughes called it "a moral battle cry," noting that "the love and warmth and humanity that went into its writing keep it alive a century later," and Tolstoy described it as "flowing from love of God and man."

About Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Uncle Tom, Topsy, Sambo, Simon Legree, little Eva: their names are American bywords, and all of them are characters in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s remarkable novel of the pre-Civil War South. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was revolutionary in 1852 for its passionate indictment of slavery and for its presentation of Tom, "a man of humanity," as the first black hero in American fiction. Labeled racist and condescending by some contemporary critics, it remains a shocking, controversial, and powerful work — exposing the attitudes of white nineteenth-century society toward "the peculiar institution" and documenting, in heartrending detail, the tragic breakup of black Kentucky families "sold down the river." An immediate international sensation, Uncle Tom’s Cabin sold 300,000 copies in the first year, was translated into thirty-seven languages, and has never gone out of print: its political impact was immense, its emotional influence immeasurable.

About Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Uncle Tom, Topsy, Sambo, Simon Legree, little Eva: their names are American bywords, and all of them are characters in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s remarkable novel of the pre-Civil War South. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was revolutionary in 1852 for its passionate indictment of slavery and for its presentation of Tom, “a man of humanity,” as the first black hero in American fiction. Labeled racist and condescending by some contemporary critics, it remains a shocking, controversial, and powerful work — exposing the attitudes of white nineteenth-century society toward “the peculiar institution” and documenting, in heartrending detail, the tragic breakup of black Kentucky families “sold down the river.” An immediate international sensation, Uncle Tom’s Cabin sold 300,000 copies in the first year, was translated into thirty-seven languages, and has never gone out of print: its political impact was immense, its emotional influence immeasurable.

About Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Uncle Tom, Topsy, Sambo, Simon Legree, little Eva: their names are American bywords, and all of them are characters in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s remarkable novel of the pre-Civil War South. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was revolutionary in 1852 for its passionate indictment of slavery and for its presentation of Tom, "a man of humanity," as the first black hero in American fiction. Labeled racist and condescending by some contemporary critics, it remains a shocking, controversial, and powerful work — exposing the attitudes of white nineteenth-century society toward "the peculiar institution" and documenting, in heartrending detail, the tragic breakup of black Kentucky families "sold down the river." An immediate international sensation, Uncle Tom’s Cabin sold 300,000 copies in the first year, was translated into thirty-seven languages, and has never gone out of print: its political impact was immense, its emotional influence immeasurable.

About Uncle Tom’s Cabin

An international bestseller that sold more than 300,000 copies when it first appeared in 1852, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was dismissed by some as abolitionist propaganda; yet Tolstoy deemed it a great work of literature ‘flowing from love of God and man.’

Today, however, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s stirring indictment of slavery if often confused with garish dramatizations that flourished for decades after the Civil War: productions that relied heavily on melodramatic simplifications of character totally alien to the original. Thus ‘Uncle Tom’ has become a pejorative term for a subservient black, whereas Uncle Tom in the book is a man who, under the most inhumane of circumstances, never loses his human dignity.

‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin is the most powerful and most enduring work of art ever written about American slavery,’ said Alfred Kazin.

Praise

"Uncle Tom’s Cabin is the most powerful and enduring work of art ever written about American slavery."
—Alfred Kazin

About Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe, a prolific writer best remembered today for Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, on June 14, 1811, into a prominent New England family. First serialized in The National Era, an abolitionist paper, in 40 weekly installments between June 5, 1851,… More about Harriet Beecher Stowe

About Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe, a prolific writer best remembered today for Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, on June 14, 1811, into a prominent New England family. First serialized in The National Era, an abolitionist paper, in 40 weekly installments between June 5, 1851,… More about Harriet Beecher Stowe

About Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe, a prolific writer best remembered today for Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, on June 14, 1811, into a prominent New England family. First serialized in The National Era, an abolitionist paper, in 40 weekly installments between June 5, 1851,… More about Harriet Beecher Stowe

About Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe, a prolific writer best remembered today for Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, on June 14, 1811, into a prominent New England family. First serialized in The National Era, an abolitionist paper, in 40 weekly installments between June 5, 1851,… More about Harriet Beecher Stowe

About Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe, a prolific writer best remembered today for Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, on June 14, 1811, into a prominent New England family. First serialized in The National Era, an abolitionist paper, in 40 weekly installments between June 5, 1851,… More about Harriet Beecher Stowe