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Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe - review

Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin (Wordsworth Classics)

Harriet Beecher Stowe's main work Uncle Tom's Cabin has an incredible legacy. Focusing on the plight of African American slaves in antebellum USA, it was charged by Abraham Lincoln with the outbreak of the American Civil War and it is easy, even in this modern day, to see why: the amazing legacy is matched by the fantastic plot which follows the irresistibly loveable character Uncle Tom through his trials and torments under different slave owners and the intertwining lives of various other slaves. At once thrilling and devastating it is no surprise that the novel had such a profound effect on the people of the day.

One of the most pervading themes of the book is faith, most importantly its inability to be shaken. The inspirational character Tom's strong faith is demonstrated throughout the novel and the way that, despite all the hardships he suffers, his faith is unbreakable has had an acute impact on me as a reader. Full of poignant moments, the novel shows Tom's admirable and steadfast faith in God until the very end. Particularly profound is the way that the other characters prove contrasting in their ability to trust and hope; unlike Tom, they allow themselves to succumb to the hopelessness of their surroundings.

The tumultuous and twisting plot makes for a real page-turner of a novel and the journeys undertaken by the main characters of the novel are cleverly paralleled in terms of hope. When a sense of hope for a new life and new beginning for one character overtakes the devastating loss of hope for another, the effect is bittersweet and one can't help but wish that Beecher Stowe had composed a sequel.

Of course, the dominant theme of slavery woven throughout the novel makes for a deeply disturbing lesson in the History of not just the USA but also of the world. Through Beecher Stowe's eyes we learn about perhaps the most damaging effects of "peculiar institution" – not the physical punishment the slaves are served, nor the loss of the fundamental human right to liberty, but the separation of families and loved ones, a cruel reminder of the dehumanised way in which the slaves were treated.

I urge everyone and anyone to read this novel – despite the fact that it was abolished before our time, it gives a real insight into all aspects of slavery. If you want a heart-wrenching book that explores one of the greatest evils of humanity, whilst still retaining a small piece of hope for change, Uncle Tom's Cabin is for you.

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Review: Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Uncle Tom’s Cabin , Harriet Beecher Stowe (with an introduction by James M. McPherson). New York: Vintage Books/Library of America: 1991 (originally published 1852).

Summary: Stowe’s classic novel depicting the evils of slavery, the complicity of North and South, and the aspirations and faith of slaves themselves.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the best-selling novel of the nineteenth century, and it’s author the one who Abraham Lincoln reputedly greeted as “the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.” While much has been written of and imputed to this book, one thing that I think Stowe herself would denounce is the idea that she wrote this book to embroil the nation in war.

What then did she do? First of all, she wrote a novel with memorable characters, evocative scenes and a plot line with the right mix of pathos and triumph. Of course there is the title character. More recently, “Uncle Tom” has become an epithet for blacks who sell out to the white system, but this seems an unjust reading of Tom whose faith leads him to serve, to evangelize, and when ultimately necessary, resist his white overlords. There is Eliza, whose memorable flight to freedom across the ice flows of the Ohio River keep the reader’s rapt attention. We have the evil Legree, who epitomizes the worst of slaveholding, as well as the consequences of a heart hardened and given over to evil. The death of Eva pulls at the heartstrings, drawn out over a couple chapters. The plot line of Tom’s sale for the debts of the Selby’s, his descent to New Orleans and the temporary rest of St. Clare’s liberal household, the nadir of conditions under Legree, followed by redemption and the closing of several circles leads the reader through an expose of the different dimensions of slavery while drawing to a climax and satisfactory conclusion.

She writes artfully, if not with subtlety. She interposes humorous chapters with grievous ones, and moments of rest, such as the reunification of George and Eliza among the Quakers with stories of mothers and children being parted by slave traders. She challenges Northern sensibilities as well as southern ones. St. Clare’s dialogues with prim and abolitionist-proper Ophelia reveal the hypocrisies of northerners who would end slavery but want little to do with Blacks as co-equals. Her struggles with Topsy expose to her her lovelessness. On a structural level we see the complicity of Northern politicians in passing fugitive slave laws and bankers whose practices of lending helped perpetuate the economics of slavery.

This is what makes the simplistic comment that this book made, or helped make the Civil War, while probably meant as a jest, an unfair charge. Yes, Southerners vigorously defended themselves against the claims of the book, claims which Stowe subsequently documented, demonstrating that, if anything, her portrayal was restrained. I think Stowe’s aim was not to condemn, except for those like Legree, but to encourage slaveholders who had their own doubts of the justice of slavery. Her portrayals of both the Selbys and St. Claire reflect the ambivalence of slaveholders who saw the evil of the system of which they were a part. What is more striking to me, perhaps because I live in the North, is that Northerners ignored her critique of their own hypocrisies and complicity in regard to slavery, and gave heed to the voices that inflated their sense of self-righteousness.

The book is not without its problems. It indulges in racial stereotypes that are offensive to the modern reader. And it seems to participate in the hypocrisy of celebrating the spirituality and humanity of blacks and yet suggests that perhaps it indeed is best to free them, educate them, and send them back to Africa, when in fact blacks were here before the Mayflower and had as much a claim to this country as do whites.

At the same time, Stowe does a radical thing in this book. She portrays Tom as a black “Christ figure” to a racist nation. She does something similar to what Jesus himself does with Jewish religious leaders in using a despised Samaritan as the model of a good neighbor. She exposes her readers to the reality not only of the humanness of blacks but of their spiritual brotherhood with others who would identify as “Christian,” which would have been much of America, North and South. We are forced to deeply identify with the offense of treating as a piece of property to be disposed of as one would wish, one who we would call “brother.”

This is a book that, with all its flaws, is part of the cultural history of a nation, and, I think, should be on the reading list of every literate American. It continues to raise questions for us of how we will act when what is legal may not be just. It helps us understand the power of systems of injustice, and yet the personal choices both those with power and those without may make to resist injustice. It is a book to make us search our own souls.

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Book Review

Uncle tom’s cabin.

Harriet Beecher Stowe
Drama , Historical

Readability Age Range

High school and up
Published by a variety of companies including (but not exclusively) Hurst and Company, Broadview Press, Dover Publications and Barnes and Noble Books.

Year Published

This historic drama was written in 1851 by Harriet Beecher Stowe as a serial story for an abolitionist newspaper. It was published in book form in 1852 by John P. Jewett and is now published by a variety of companies including (but not exclusively) Hurst and Company, Broadview Press, Dover Publications and Barnes and Noble Books.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin is written for adults, but may be assigned to students in high school.

Plot Summary

The story follows the lives of two slaves, Tom and Eliza. Mister Arthur Shelby owns them and treats his slaves honestly and compassionately. Mr. Shelby falls into debt and must sell a slave or lose his property to Mr. Haley, a coarse slave trader. He accepts Tom as payment, but insists that Mr. Shelby also give him a young slave. Mr. Shelby agrees to sell Harry, Eliza’s young son, but asks for time to talk first to his wife. Eliza overhears their conversation and begs her mistress not to sell her son. Mrs. Shelby, unaware of her husband’s arrangements, assures her desperate maid that Harry will remain on the Shelby plantation.

That afternoon, Eliza’s husband, George Harris, comes to talk with her. A slave on another plantation, George’s master had hired him out to a factory where his light skin and intelligence made him a favorite. But Mr. Harris, George’s master, disapproved of his slave doing so well and insisted on his return. Harris beats George and talks about getting George a new wife since slave marriages are not legal. George tells Eliza that he plans on running to Canada where he will save money to help her and Harry escape.

Meanwhile, Arthur Shelby signs the papers to sell Tom and Harry. Shelby later tells his wife about the transaction. Mrs. Shelby is appalled because she has promised Eliza that Harry would not be sold. Eliza listens in on the conversation; she cannot bear to lose her son to a slave trader. She gathers her few meager belongings, bundles up her son and runs to Tom’s cabin. She informs him what has transpired. Tom will not try to escape as he feels it is his Christian duty to go wherever God intends him to go, but he urges Eliza to escape. She and her son flee into the night.

Haley arrives to take Tom away in fetters. Haley stops in town to have handcuffs made for Tom while Tom waits in the wagon. Young George Shelby arrives, hugs Tom and promises that when he’s older, he will track him down and buy him back. He ties a dollar around Tom’s neck as a sign of his promise.

In a nearby town, men discuss a handbill advertising the escape of George Harris, Eliza’s husband. It describes George as a mulatto who will probably try to pass as a white man but will be identified by the letter “H” burned into his right hand. One of the men in the discussion is Mr. Wilson, the owner of the factory where George used to work. A Spanish-looking gentleman then arrives and admits he may have seen the slave in question in a neighboring village. Mr. Wilson recognizes him as George but doesn’t give him away. George invites Mr. Wilson to his room where he explains his plan to escape to Canada by posing as a Spaniard. George’s impassioned arguments about a man’s right to freedom move Mr. Wilson, who promises not to turn him in.

Eliza and Harry find temporary sanctuary with the Halliday family in a Quaker settlement. Mrs. Halliday is surprised to learn Eliza’s last name is Harris because she’s heard that a George Harris is making his way to the settlement en route to Canada. Eliza and her husband are reunited that night and eventually escape to Canada.

On the boat heading to Haley’s plantation, a young girl named Eva befriends Tom and says she will ask her father to buy him so they won’t have to be parted. When Eva slips overboard, Tom dives into the river to save her. Her father, Augustine St. Clare, buys Tom from Haley.

St. Clare is a wealthy New Orleans gentleman married to Marie, a bitter and demanding woman, prone to imagined illnesses. St. Clare’s cousin, Miss Ophelia, has traveled home with him to help raise Eva and manage the house. Tom arrives in the St. Clare home, overwhelmed by its opulence.

Marie complains about the slaves. She doesn’t believe slaves form attachments to their families. When she can’t get any sympathy from St. Clare or Eva, Marie complains to Miss Ophelia. Miss Ophelia, an abolitionist, refuses to engage her in conversation about slavery. Marie’s whining contrasts starkly to her daughter’s extravagant love. Eva enjoys a house filled with slaves so that she can love them all. The slaves adore her and her father, but barely tolerate Marie.

Tom proves trustworthy to St. Clare. He worries for St. Clare’s soul as his master spends most evenings drinking, with no concern for the Lord. Tom pleads with St. Clare to stop his sinful ways and seek God. St. Clare promises to try and live a better life.

St. Clare buys a young slave girl for Miss Ophelia to train and raise as a Christian. The slave, Topsy, is a bright but incorrigible girl who never knew her parents. A speculator — one who buys young slaves and raises them to sell — reared her. She is uneducated and ignorant of God. St. Clare and the other slaves argue that the only way to train Topsy is to whip her, but Miss Ophelia rejects the idea. She begins to comprehend St. Clare’s complaints that the slaves can’t be freed because they don’t know how to behave in society.

Tom continues to gain responsibilities in the St. Clare household as he and Eva grow closer. He makes her small gifts and buys her small tokens from the market, and she reads the Bible to him. The family moves to Lake Pontchartrain for the summer when Eva’s health begins to deteriorate. Tom and Eva spend hours together reading Revelation and the prophecies. Tom teaches her hymns. Eva claims to have seen angels and tells Tom that she soon will be going with them to heaven.

Eva’s health continues its decline. She begs her father to free their slaves or at least work toward making slavery illegal after she dies. It is the work she would have done had she lived. She tells him she would gladly die if it would set the slaves free. Her father promises to do what he can and to at least set Tom free in the near future. Eva speaks of going to be with the Lord and hopes that her father will live as a Christian so they can be together forever in heaven.

One afternoon Miss Ophelia confronts St. Clare, telling him she can no longer be in charge of Topsy. The slave is belligerent, mischievous and unteachable. As they bicker, Eva pulls Topsy into another room and asks if she loves anyone. The slave explains that she never has known love. She never knew her parents or siblings; she’s been raised as a slave her entire life, and none of her masters have shown her any affection. Eva pleads that Miss Ophelia would love Topsy if she would only be good. Topsy laughs and says that Miss Ophelia doesn’t even want Topsy to touch her because she’s black. Eva embraces Topsy and pronounces her love for the slave girl. Eva promises that Jesus loves Topsy even more. If Topsy would only believe in Christ, she would know His love. Eva begs Topsy to become a Christian so she will see her again in heaven.

Topsy breaks down, promising to try to be good and become a Christian. Miss Ophelia, who has listened in to their conversation, is appalled that Topsy sensed her aversion to the slave’s touch. Eva’s unconditional love spurs Miss Ophelia to be more accepting. She hopes by observing Eva, she can learn to be a better follower of Christ.

Tom spends his nights in vigil outside of Eva’s room, as he knows her death is imminent. Eva asks Miss Ophelia to cut off her beautiful golden curls. Eva then calls all the slaves to her room to say goodbye. She gives them each a lock of her hair to remember her by and commands them to love each other and God. Her father, mother and cousin stand by her bedside as she dies. She asks if her father is a Christian and tells him of the wonderful world she will reside in soon. He is jealous of her passion, but cannot accept it for himself. He asks her to explain what she sees. As she breathes her last breath, she tells him excitedly she sees a land of love, joy and peace.

Eva’s death sends the house into mourning. Marie insists on the slaves’ full attention as she bemoans her loss. St. Clare hides in his study. Finally, Tom begs his master to trust in God so that his faith can bring him peace. When St. Clare puts him off, Tom goes into another room and prays fervently for his master’s salvation. St. Clare overhears Tom’s prayers and for the first time is moved to believe there may be some truth to Tom’s beliefs.

Miss Ophelia approaches St. Clare and asks for legal possession of Topsy. Ophelia has let go of her own prejudices and, through her own transformation, has been able to preach God’s love to the slave. Topsy is reformed. Miss Ophelia wishes to bring the girl home to New England and set her free. When St. Clare agrees, Ophelia demands he write the document of transfer immediately as she doesn’t want to risk losing Topsy to an unkind slave owner should a tragedy befall St. Clare. She wonders if he has made any provisions for his own slaves in case of his untimely death, and he assures her he will do so soon. Unfortunately, he dies that night from a fight in a tavern. He begs Tom to pray for him and mumbles his own prayers. His eyes then open wide with happiness, and he calls for his mother as he dies.

The slaves then become Marie’s property. She immediately decides to teach them a lesson by ordering the whipping of one of her maids. Others plead for mercy, but Marie is adamant the slave be taught a lesson for her perceived insolence. Marie then ships the rest of the household to the slave warehouse to be sold so she can have the money when she moves back to her father’s home. Miss Ophelia begs Marie to at least set Tom free, but she refuses.

In the slave warehouse, the reader is introduced to a young slave named Emmeline, a beautiful, light-skinned slave. She and Tom are sold to a gruff man named Simon Legree. Legree sells all of Tom’s nice clothes and throws away Tom’s hymnbook. Religion isn’t tolerated. Tom hides his Bible inside his shirt. Legree threatens his slaves with violence if they don’t obey his every command.

Legree lives alone with only the slaves for company. One slave, Cassy, lives in his house as his mistress. He bought Emmeline to replace her. Two slave overseers keep order through brutality. Legree hopes that Tom will take over as foreman but soon learns that Tom lacks a brutal nature. When Cassy misbehaves, Legree instructs Tom to whip her. He refuses, and he is whipped almost to death by the overseers.

Tom’s faith is sorely tested by the prevalent evil on Legree’s plantation, but a vision of Eva restores his hope. Cassy sneaks to Tom’s side to give him some water and attend to his wounds. She tells him there is no God. He begs her not to let the evil around them keep her from God’s love. She tells him her story.

Cassy is a mulatto, the daughter of a slave and her master. She grew up in luxury under her father’s care and fell in love with a lawyer. He took her as his mistress, and they had two children. When the lawyer fell in love with another woman, he sold Cassy to a new owner and sold away her children. When Cassy became pregnant by her third master, she killed the child rather than see it sold into slavery. Eventually, she was sold to Legree and suffered violence and sexual abuse from him.

One day, while Legree argues with Cassy, an overseer brings him the lock of Eva’s hair that Tom had worn in a locket around his neck. Legree looks at the curl as if it were cursed. The reader learns that Legree’s mother had golden hair like Eva’s and had sent a lock of it to him as she lay on her deathbed. The accompanying letter claimed that she forgave him for abandoning her and her faith for a life at sea.

He flees the house and his memories in search of Emmeline, but hears Tom leading the other slaves in a hymn. Legree fears Tom’s faith and turns back. The following day he tells Tom to beg his forgiveness, but Tom refuses. He has been given a vision, in which he saw the sufferings of Christ. Jesus has promised him a great reward in heaven if Tom can remain faithful for a little while longer on this earth. Cassy tells Tom that she wants to kill Legree. He pleads with her to try and escape instead, and she agrees.

Cassy remembers rumors that the garret in Legree’s house is haunted. She tells him that she’s recently heard noises up there and seen strange things along the hallway. She and Emmeline then pretend to escape. They run into a nearby swamp, but when all the slaves and Legree leave the plantation to search for them, they sneak back to the house and hide in the attic. There, Cassy has stashed an ample supply of food. When the dogs tracking the pair lead Legree back to his house, he figures they have lost the scent. He is enraged that the women have eluded him and believes Tom knows something about their plan. He calls Tom and demands that the slave tell what he knows. Tom refuses. He tells Legree that he will do any work his master demands, but he won’t harm another slave or say anything that will get them in trouble.

For a moment Legree seems to weigh what he will do with Tom’s answer, but his anger soon outweighs Tom’s goodness. Legree vows to beat him until Tom submits. When Legree is too exhausted to hit him anymore, he calls in his overseers to continue the punishment. As Tom lies close to death, he forgives the other slaves for their hand in his murder. They are moved by his faith and eventually accept Christ. He prays for their salvation.

A few days later, young George Shelby, son of Tom’s first master, arrives at the Legree plantation in search of Tom. Tom’s wife has secured enough money to buy Tom back, and now that George’s father has died, he has come to make good on his promise to free his friend. George’s presence comforts Tom and he dies contented.

George promises to bring Legree up on murder charges. Legree laughs that a white man cannot be prosecuted for a slave’s murder. George must be satisfied with punching the evil man in the face. George asks the overseers to help him bury Tom’s body. Legree’s other slaves are moved by George’s compassion and beg him to buy them and take them away. George is sorry he can’t afford to buy them but promises to work to end slavery.

Cassy and Emmeline escape from the house while Legree is in a drunken stupor. Because of their light skin, Cassy disguises herself as a free Creole woman traveling with her servant. They happen to board the same boat north as George Shelby. Fearing that he might know who she is because of Legree’s description, Cassy confesses everything, and he promises to do everything he can to help her escape.

Another passenger, Madame de Thoux, overhears George talking about his home and questions him. She explains that she was born a slave and sold away from her mother and brother at a young age. The man who bought her brought her to the West Indies and married her. Now a widow, she’s returned to America to find her brother. George’s description of Eliza’s husband matches that of this woman’s brother. Cassy has been eavesdropping on their conversation and faints. When she comes to, she explains that she is convinced that Eliza is her daughter.

George and Eliza Harris are settled into the free life in Canada. George works in a machine shop, and Eliza has had another baby. One day Cassy and Madame de Thoux surprise them with a visit. The families are reunited with their loved ones. Madame de Thoux uses her substantial inheritance to help them emigrate to France where George studies at a university. Not much is known about the ensuing years, other than that the family later emigrated to Liberia, a country set up as a homeland for freed slaves.

George Shelby returns home and gives the sad news of Tom’s death to his wife. He then presents all of his slaves with papers of freedom. They implore him not to send them away. He agrees to let them stay on as long as he can pay them. They will be freed when he dies. He then tells them of Tom’s life and legacy and asks them to remember the kind man every time they see his cabin.

In the final chapter, Harriet Beecher Stowe relates that she has either been a witness herself, or has reliable evidence, to all of the incidents in her book. She makes an impassioned plea to Northerners and Southerners to honor God and end the evil of slavery.

Christian Beliefs

Mrs. Shelby has taught all her slaves about God’s love and insists they live according to His commandments. She is appalled her husband believes Tom would willingly take another wife since she was adamant all her slaves be married by a priest, making the wedding sacred before God.

Many of the slaves pray to God for help. George Shelby and Eva read the Bible to Tom. Tom struggles to read the Bible himself. He is constantly described as an honest man, made so by his devotion to God and His laws. Tom often tells other slaves to pray for their masters, as the sins they commit will weigh heavily on them at the time of judgment.

Eliza hopes that Tom Loker hasn’t been killed, as he will have to face judgment. Eva talks about the visions she has of heaven and the angels. Miss Ophelia says that Topsy is “raising Cain” when Topsy acts out pantomimes. Eva believes that slaves should be taught to read so they can have the pleasure of reading the Bible. She pleads with her father and Topsy to accept Christ. When she dies, she tells her father that she sees a land of peace, love and joy.

Tom’s time on the Legree plantation is one of brutality and revival. The other slaves are hopeless, bitter and angry. The relationship between Tom and Legree is seen as a symbol of Satan’s battle with God. Legree is determined to break Tom’s spirit and faith. He beats the slave, mocks him and works him to exhaustion. During one beating, Legree claims to have bought Tom, body and soul. Tom, bloody and in pain, cries out that Legree can never buy his soul because it has already been bought and paid for.

At one point, Tom is nearly broken, but then God grants him a vision. Tom sees Christ, crowned in thorns and beaten down. Tom is brought to his knees at the sight. Then, the thorns are changed into rays of glory and Christ is surrounded by indescribable radiance. Jesus reaches his hand to Tom and assures him that if he can overcome the trials of this world and persevere to the end, he will sit down with Jesus on His throne.

This vision propels Tom to minister to the other slaves. Tom’s attitude of humility and joy break through their bitterness, and soon he is whispering God’s Word throughout the camp. The slaves sing hymns, much to Legree’s distaste. Tom’s faith eventually leads to his death as Legree chooses to accept evil as his guide and cannot bear Tom’s goodness.

These are just a few of the many references to Christianity in the book. Almost every page of Uncle Tom’s Cabin rings with Stowe’s Christian faith. Characters such as Eva and Tom are symbolic of Christ’s unconditional love for humanity and willingness to sacrifice this life for others’ salvation. Throughout the book, Stowe pleads with her readers to see slavery as an abomination in God’s eyes. She calls on them to recall what they know of Christ’s love and the Bible, to realize keeping a human being in slavery is a sin. She often quotes the Bible in her arguments.

Other Belief Systems

St. Clare compares his cousin Miss Ophelia to one of the Fates. Miss Ophelia compares Topsy to a gnome from Diablerie. St. Clare scolds Ophelia for thinking Eva’s cough is any more than a summer cold, calling Ophelia’s fears hobgoblin nursery stories.

Legree is consumed with nightmares about his dead mother and his denial of her faith. He thinks that the lock of Eva’s hair found on Tom is actually that of his dead mother. He wonders if the hair could restore her life. He and many of his slaves believe there is a female ghost living in his attic. He thinks Cassy might be using black magic on him.

Authority Roles

Stowe presents many and varying types of slave owners and abolitionists. St. Clare is a kindhearted but weak man, whose indulgences only end up harming his slaves when he dies. Legree is the epitome of evil and cruelty, capable of beating and burning slaves to death. Arthur Shelby is a blend of the two extremes, treating his slaves with dignity as long as it suits him. Quakers and other Northerners take great risks in hiding runaway slaves and helping them flee to Canada. The laws of the land are shown to be heartless as Stowe describes excruciating scenes of mothers being ripped away from their children. The laws of God are mocked as slave owners insist their slaves forgo earlier marriages and take new spouses.

Profanity & Violence

Because of the period in which the book was written, slaves are often referred to by the n-word. Many of the swear words in Uncle Tom’s Cabin are censored by Stowe herself, written as h–l and d–m . H—begotten is used. God’s name is invoked throughout the book, usually as a character is crying out to Him such as “God help him,” “Lord bless,” “Lord knows,” “Lor,” “Lor bless you” and “O, Lor.” Heaven is also used an exclamation as in “heaven bless us.” Bosum is also used to describe a woman’s chest.

The brutality and cruelty of slavery are described throughout the book. Slaves are often threatened with whippings and beatings. George Harris tells Eliza how his master demanded he tie a stone around his dog’s neck and drown him. When George refused, his master did it and then continued to throw stones at the dog while he drowned. George was then whipped for disobedience. He is also branded with a letter H burned onto his hand to mark him as Mr. Harris’ slave.

Tom Loker describes how he threatens slave mothers with a severe beating if they put up a fight when he sells their children. Several times the reader must endure gut-wrenching scenes or stories of children being sold to new masters while their mothers shriek in despair. One mother jumps from the back of a boat to her death after her child has been sold.

Prue tells of listening to her child cry itself to death from starvation because her mistress wouldn’t let her feed her baby. She is beaten to death because of her drunkenness. Loker shoots at George Harris as the slave hunter tries to capture the slaves. Loker is then shot in the side. Phineas pushes Loker over the side of the pass, causing the man to be more severely injured.

A story is told of Mrs. Bird, the senator’s wife, of a time when she whipped her sons because they stoned a kitten. St. Clare is fatally stabbed in a bar fight. Tom is severely beaten on several occasions by Legree and his overseers. Cassy killed her baby because she couldn’t bear to see another of her children sold into slavery. Legree talks of whipping the flesh off of slaves who have tried to escape his plantation or tying them to a stake and burning them alive.

Sexual Content

Although not explicit, it is implied throughout the book that slave women are often forced to sleep with their masters. Emmeline’s mother straightens her hair before the auction to try and make her plainer, but the auctioneer insists on it being curled. He knows that he will get more money for her if she is attractive.

Legree gropes Emmeline’s neck and breasts as he surveys the slaves before the auction. Legree has kept Cassy as his mistress for several years and buys Emmeline to replace her. He also buys another mulatto woman and orders her to sleep with his overseers even though she already has a husband. Cassy tells Tom that she willingly became the mistress of one man, having two children by him. Later, she was sold to several other owners who used her for sex.

Stowe makes the point on several occasions that even though a slave may have been taught God’s laws, they are often forced by their masters to disobey them, as when a master separates a couple, then orders the remaining spouse to sleep with someone else.

Discussion Topics

Get free discussion questions for this book and others, at FocusOnTheFamily.com/discuss-books .

Additional Comments

Alcohol: Shelby and Haley drink wine. Haley drinks with Marks and Loker in the tavern. St. Clare often drinks to excess at the bars. Legree drinks with his overseers. By the end of the book it is hinted that he drinks himself to death.

**Tobacco: Several characters smoke cigarettes and cigars. Some chew tobacco.

Lying: The slave trader Marks admits to being a great liar.

Stealing: Haley agrees that Loker and Marks may keep Eliza for themselves, if they find her, rather than returning her to Mr. Shelby. Topsy steals small things, such as ribbons and gloves, from her mistress.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin has been filmed several times. Edgar J. Scherick, Taft Entertainment and Showtime Entertainment produced the most recent version for television in 1987. One of the earliest versions was made in 1927 and produced by Universal Pictures.

This review is brought to you by Focus on the Family, a donor-based ministry. Book reviews cover the content, themes and world-views of fiction books, not their literary merit, and equip parents to decide whether a book is appropriate for their children. A book’s inclusion does not constitute an endorsement by Focus on the Family.

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The Impact of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’

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By Andrew Delbanco

June 24, 2011

No less an authority than Leo Tolstoy included “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” on his short list of “examples of the highest art flowing from love of God and man.” Fifty years later, James Baldwin called the same book a “very bad novel” full of “excessive and spurious emotion.” What goes on here? The question belongs in the present tense because it is by no means settled.

There’s nothing unsettled, however, about “Mightier Than the Sword,” David S. Reynolds’s informative account of the writing, reception and modern reputation of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Reynolds unstintingly celebrates its author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, as a colossal writer who mobilized public opinion against slavery, and proved, against long odds, “a white woman’s capacity to enter into the subjectivity of black people.”

The novel began to germinate in Stowe’s mind while she was living in Cincinnati in the 1830s and ’40s, where she met fugitive slaves who had escaped through or from Kentucky, and where, as Reynolds puts it, “she loved spending time in the kitchen with servants like the African-American Zillah.” In the spring of 1850, having moved to Maine, where she followed the Congressional debates over a proposed new law that would deny fugitive slaves basic rights while imposing new penalties on anyone harboring them, she wrote to a magazine editor that “the time is come when even a woman or a child who can speak a word for freedom and humanity is bound to speak.” The result was a series of fictional sketches of slaves under physical or psychological assault — among them, the beautiful Eliza, who escapes from bounty hunters by leaping from ice floe to ice floe across the Ohio River with her baby in her arms; the brooding Cassy, who belongs to the brutal Simon Legree; and Tom himself, whose gentleness and generosity grow apace as he is sold farther and farther south, eventually to Legree, who torments and tortures him before ordering his overseers to beat him to death.

When the magazine pieces were gathered and published in 1852 as “Uncle Tom’s Cabin; Or, Life Among the Lowly,” the first print run was 5,000. Within a year, the book had sold 300,000 copies in America, and over a million in Britain. As Reynolds points out, a contemporary periodical noted that the number of people who encountered the story may have been 10 times the number who bought the book — since it came out in an era when reading aloud was a common practice among family and friends.

If ever there was a publishing event to prove the principle that timing is everything, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was it. On both sides of the sectional divide the timber was dry — and Stowe struck the igniting spark. In the North, Frederick Douglass rejoiced that she had “baptized with holy fire myriads who before cared nothing for the bleeding slave.” In the South, her indictment of slavery through the odious figure of Legree was likened to a “malignant” attack on the institution of marriage, as if she had chosen a wife-beater to represent “the normal condition of the relation” between loving spouses.

A decade after the book appeared, Abraham Lincoln is said to have received Stowe at the White House with the greeting, “Is this the little woman who made this great war?” No one knows if Lincoln really said that, and as the historian David Potter once put it, “history cannot evaluate with precision the influence of a novel upon public opinion.” But Reynolds is sure that the influence of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was immense.

Not only, he says, had Stowe “paved the way” for Lincoln’s election, but after her death she may have helped Lenin, who admired her novel, evade the czar’s agents by escaping from Finland over “the breaking ice of the moderately frozen Orfjarden Sound.” Through stage versions of the novel, she helped Henry James develop a sense of “human feelings as performative and theatrical.” Through Chinese and Portuguese translations, she inspired anticolonialism in China and emancipation in Brazil, and she taught the advertising firm J. Walter Thompson how “great masses of people can be influenced through their emotions.”

Reynolds is a rewarding researcher. He illuminates the innumerable “Tom shows” that became a staple of American popular entertainment, as well as the use of Uncle Tom’s image to sell jigsaw puzzles, dolls, card games, stockings and — grotesquely enough — licorice. He identifies stage and screen stars who accepted (Betty Grable, Judy Garland) or refused (Lena Horne, Paul Robeson) roles based on Stowe’s characters. One film performance is surely still worth watching: Little Eva — the angelic white girl who dies after befriending Tom — as played by Lou Costello.

Reynolds has insightful things to say about Stowe’s efforts “to present Southerners as favorably as possible” even as she excoriated their peculiar institution. And in surveying Uncle Tom’s postpublication career, he makes a number of striking points. He suggests, for example, that it may have been Frederick Douglass who first used the term “Uncle Tom” as a pejorative epithet denoting the shuffling docility of a submissive black man, and he traces the ups and downs of the novel’s reputation — high in the Civil War years, low during much of the 20th century, when the romanticized account in Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone With the Wind” (1936) largely supplanted Stowe’s version of the antebellum South. Today, Reynolds says, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is again “one of the must-reads of American literature.”

s such, it is a challenging book with which to come to terms. In my experience, students can be embarrassed by it. They recognize it as a valuable document for understanding the history of what we now call the “conversation” about race in America. In response to the prevailing view of black people as inferior beings (a view long held in the North as well as the South), it lifted its black characters to the status of impossibly virtuous victims — just the elevation that James Baldwin felt was a kind of contempt. When Baldwin called Stowe less a novelist than an “impassioned pamphleteer,” he meant, in part, that her characters don’t seem capable of selfishness as well as self-sacrifice, or of pettiness and jealousy along with piety and wisdom. In short, they don’t seem human. Reynolds calls Baldwin’s a “blinkered critique,” though he concedes that Stowe trafficked in the clichés of “romantic racialism” while reminding us, fairly enough, that what now seems “like racial stereotyping” was “progressive” in her day.

Still, we are left at the end of this book with the unsettling question of how to think about “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” as part of our cultural inheritance. The case for it as a literary work of depth and nuance is dubious. Yet it belongs to the very short list of American books (including, say, “The Other America” by Michael Harrington and “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson) that helped create or consolidate a reform movement — in Stowe’s case, the most consequential reform movement in our history. Perhaps the fact that readers today have trouble taking seriously its heroes and villains is a tribute to its achievement — since, in some immeasurable way, it helped bring on the war that rendered unimaginable the world that Stowe attempted to imagine.

MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD

“uncle tom’s cabin” and the battle for america.

By David S. Reynolds

Illustrated. 351 pp. W. W. Norton & Company. $27.95.

Andrew Delbanco, the director of American studies at Columbia, is the author of “Melville: His World and Work” and other books.

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Uncle tom's cabin, by harriet beecher stowe, recommendations from our site.

“Uncle Tom’s Cabin is an anti-slavery activist novel, written in the run-up to the Civil War. Stowe tried to mediate the widening schism between North and South, but the book had the opposite effect – prodding north and south to greater extremes of rage. With some justice, Uncle Tom’s Cabin has been called a cause of the Civil War. When President Abraham Lincoln met the author at the White House, he greeted her as “the little lady that started the big war.” Read more...

The Great American Novel

Lawrence Buell

Lots of people recognise that Uncle Tom’s Cabin was an absolute turning point in getting people to acknowledge that black people were human beings like anyone else.

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Look at what novels such as The Jungle and On the Beach and Uncle Tom’s Cabin and To Kill a Mockingbird and New York 2140 have done. That have all, in their own ways, changed the world , and changed the literary climate. Novels have heft. Political and scientific op-eds lead only to media distractions and political and scientific squabbles.

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A book I didn’t include— Uncle Tom’s Cabin —was designed to change the world. But very few, actually, are written with that particular objective in mind.

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(Progress and Poverty was) published in 1888, it ranks with Uncle Tom ’ s Cabin as one of the most influential political novels of the 19th century.

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This Week in Books: Should We Still Read Uncle Tom’s Cabin ?

A conversation with Clint Smith on the moral complexity in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s famous book

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Uncle Tom’s Cabin , first published to colossal success in 1852, has been in reputational free fall ever since. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel about the trials of an enslaved man named Tom who accepts his suffering with Christian equanimity proved a boon to the abolitionist cause, though its actual depictions of Black people skimp on providing them with much humanity. Even in its time, the book was vulgarized via stage adaptations that reduced Stowe’s story to minstrelsy and her characters to caricatures. Today, a work that did so much to shake white northerners out of their complacency is remembered mostly as a slur. But in an essay for The Atlantic ’s October issue, Clint Smith surprised himself by discovering the original power of the book—along with what remains so limited and prejudiced about it. His article uncovers the story of Josiah Henson, the “original” Uncle Tom, Stowe’s real-life inspiration for the character. In his 1849 memoir, Henson described what it was like to be an overseer on a Maryland plantation and all of the moral compromises he had to make to survive slavery. Becoming acquainted with Henson’s story also gave Smith a new perspective on Uncle Tom’s Cabin . I talked with Smith about this aspect of his essay, and how he was able to brush so much accumulated dust off the book.

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Smith spoke with me from South Korea, where he was doing research for his new book. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Gal Beckerman: What was your sense of Uncle Tom’s Cabin before you opened it up again for the essay—or was it maybe the first time you read it?

Clint Smith: I’d only read excerpts in high school. I’d never read the book in full. But most of my relationship to the book was through James Baldwin’s essay about it. He had written it in 1949; he was just 24. And this was his first big essay, the one that puts him on the national scene. And he just really—

Beckerman: He was not a fan.

Smith: He was not a fan of Harriet Beecher Stowe, of Uncle Tom’s Cabin . He makes the case that it’s more a political pamphlet than a book. That it is a reductive attempt at literature that renders the characters as two-dimensional. And it’s not art so much as it is part of an ideological project. So I was primed for that, going into the reading of the book. And as I’m making my way through I’m observing a lot of the moments in which Stowe stereotypes Black people, in which the white characters are presented as having more humanity, more complexity than the Black characters. But there also are parts of the book that I thought were really fascinating in the way they presented the moral complexity of slavery in ways that perhaps no other writer was doing in that way at that time.

Beckerman: Did this change your ultimate assessment of the book?

Smith: I think my relationship to the book, by the time I got to the end of it, was a sort of a both/and. On one hand, you know, the way that some of the Black characters are presented is really unsettling. She has this thing where she breaks the fourth wall a lot. And those are the moments that I thought were actually imbued with the most stereotypes. But when she’s just letting the characters just be human beings or as close as possible, you’re seeing some of the nuance.

Beckerman: You mentioned in the piece that there were ways in which the book showed the white characters trapped in supporting slavery in spite of themselves, or understanding that this was an evil that they were involved in but going along with anyway, not knowing how to extract themselves.

Smith: Exactly. And I thought that those scenes were really valuable, because I think they speak to a very human thing. Obviously, there are gradations of it. But we all do, we all participate in things that are not aligned with our values. And once you understand that the genre Harriet Beecher Stowe was working in was very much a sort of popular fiction—it was commercial fiction, in the way that we kind of understand it today—it’s remarkable how the message reached the masses. Given the technology of the day, it went viral in a 19th-century context. And it served as a catalyst to conversation and discussions and awareness that simply weren’t happening. And so I think you can examine it on a literary level and have many critiques. And I think you can examine it on a historical level and recognize that amid its shortcomings, it played an enormous role in shaping the public consciousness of the mid-to-late 19th century. You can’t really overstate the impact that it had on our society.

Beckerman: What about the Uncle Tom stereotype? You talk in the piece about that being one of the legacies of this book—not even the story, but just the concept of an Uncle Tom. Did you feel that was also complicated by the actual character when you encountered him?

Smith: Part of what happened is that I realized that my understanding of Uncle Tom, or what an Uncle Tom is, was shaped more by everything that followed the publication of the book than the character itself. As I write in the piece, there were no copyright laws when Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote this book. And so there were … many plays that were created without her permission, or without her input. And some people tried to stay true to the essence of the book and the characters. But there were many people who turned Uncle Tom’s Cabin into a minstrel show, and turned Uncle Tom into a minstrel. But in the book, Uncle Tom—despite the fact that in many ways, he is not given the sort of texture and complexity as some of the white characters—he’s still someone who is kind and sensitive, and who, toward the end of the book, refuses to give up the location of two Black women who are trying to escape, and is ultimately beaten and killed for it. And so, in so many ways, he’s a martyr, which is very different from what the term Uncle Tom has come to mean today. It has become this slur, even within the Black community, that people use toward one another to indicate that someone is a sellout, that someone is working on behalf of white people rather than their community. Which again, is the opposite of who Uncle Tom, the character in the book, was—someone who sacrificed his life to save the lives of enslaved folks who were trying to escape.

Beckerman: That’s also a function of virality, when an artistic work gets taken out of the hands of its creator. But Josiah Henson’s autobiography: What was the experience of reading that like, after reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin ? Had you known about it before?

Smith: No, I’d never heard of Josiah Henson. I’d never read or heard of his book. And I’m someone who spent six years writing a book on the history of slavery. But when I did encounter him, and encountered his book, I was just left wondering, Why didn’t I read this in school? It would have been such a valuable resource for me, and I think it would be a valuable resource for so many teachers. Because when we learn about Harriet Tubman, when we learn about Frederick Douglass, it is part of an effort to resist the pathology, the feeling of despair, that exists among the history of slavery—of 250 years of being subjected to ubiquitous violence and oppression and surveillance. And then we get to their stories, and they are emblematic of the sense of resistance that exists within the Black community. I think that that’s so important. I think, though, if those are the only types of stories of resistance that we get, that we inadvertently gain a distorted sense of what the experience of slavery was like for the vast majority of people. And I think the value of Josiah Henson’s book is that he is a profoundly imperfect person, in the way that we all are. I mean, he does his best to be a good person—he is a man of faith, a man of conviction, a man who wakes up every day and tries to do the right thing on behalf of his loved ones, on behalf of his community. And he also does a lot of things that he later regrets. He does a lot of things that he later is ashamed of, and he makes a decision and then he’s like, I don’t know if that was the right decision . And he tries to work in the best interest of both his enslaver and the enslaved people around him when that is an impossible thing to do, given the system. I just think that that is more reflective of the sort of moral complexity of the institution and the position it put people in than any other account of slavery that I’ve read.

Beckerman: Do you think there’s a context within which you can imagine younger people in particular reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin ? Is that still a book that should be opened up and understood? How high should the guardrails be for somebody coming to it today?

Smith: I think it could be really valuable to read it alongside an educator who understands the sort of mixed bag that it is. I’m not someone at all who believes that simply because a book presents people in a way that feels unsettling to us we shouldn’t read it. If anything, I think it offers an opportunity to interrogate the way that somebody has written it and to wrestle with some of the things that I’m wrestling with in my piece. What I came away with after reading the book is that Harriet Beecher Stowe was genuinely trying to do something really important and something that, frankly, had not been done in the mid-19th century. And in many ways, she succeeded in that. She wrote this book that made white people, particularly white people in the North, aware of slavery in ways that they simply had never been. And it also offers the opportunity to interrogate: Why did they need to read that book versus some of the slave narratives that already existed? Why were these people more inclined to believe the stories of a white woman writing about this than the stories of Black people who experienced it themselves? And it could be really generative to read that book alongside Josiah Henson’s memoir, in particular, in order to put the two in conversation with one another, to see what the differences were, what the similarities are, and to examine why one of these books is more popular than the other. I used to teach high-school English in my previous life, and I would love to spend a few weeks with students doing exactly that: reading the memoir and the book.

A portrait illustration of Josiah Henson with a coast behind

The Man Who Became Uncle Tom

What to Read

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In September 1928, two strangers meet on a train headed into Berlin: Marthe Müller, an artist from Cologne looking for her place in the world, and Kurt Severing, a journalist distraught by the dark political forces rending his beloved city. Lutes began this 580-page graphic novel in 1994 and completed it in 2018, and it’s a meticulously researched, gorgeous panoramic view of the last years of the Weimar Republic. The story focuses most attentively on the lives of ordinary Berliners, including Müller, Severing, and two families warped by the increasing chaos. Certain panels even capture the stray thoughts of city dwellers, which float in balloons above their heads as they ride the trams, attend art class, and bake bread. Throughout, Berlin glitters with American jazz and underground gay clubs, all while Communists clash violently with National Socialists in the streets—one party agitating for workers and revolution, the other seething with noxious anti-Semitism and outrage over Germany’s “humiliation” after World War I. On every page are the tensions of a culture on the brink. — Chelsea Leu

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The private-equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts announced that it would buy Simon & Schuster. Because the firm doesn’t already own a competing publisher, the deal is unlikely to trigger another antitrust probe. But KKR, infamous as Wall Street’s “barbarians at the gate” since the 1980s, may leave Simon & Schuster employees and authors yearning for a third choice beyond a multinational conglomerate or a powerful financial firm. “It may be a stay of execution, but we should all be worried about how things will look at Simon & Schuster in five years,” says Ellen Adler, the publisher at the New Press, a nonprofit focused on public-interest books.

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Book Review # 154: Uncle Tom’s Cabin

“ Life Among the Lowly”

In the deepest and darkest nooks and crannies of the history of the American South lurks dark and heartbreaking secrets and stories. These tales were too dark that they were not topics of discussion but rather talked about in hushed tones in confined places. Slavery, or more specifically, black slavery is a subject we often encounter in history books. Over a century after its abolition, the concept sounds foreign but is a subject that has become synonymous with the history of the Deep South.

In the world of literature, Harriett Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin beacons as one of the most revered works dealing with the heavy and difficult subject. Alternatively titled “ Life Among the Lowly”, this anti-slavery narrative relates the story of the titular Uncle Tom. Uncle Tom was a middle-aged black slave working in the Kentucky farm of Arthur Shelby. Uncle Tom was days away from being liberated but due to the burgeoning debts of his owner, he was sold together with Harry, the son of Emily Shelby’s maid, Eliza.

Before they could be sold to their new owners, Eliza was able to fled with Harry. Unfortunately, Uncle Tom opted not to escape and chose to embrace his fate. A devout Christian, he believed in the kindness of others. On a riverboat sailing down Mississippi River, he met his new master. Will Uncle Tom finally taste the bittersweet freedom he has longed for? Or will fate yet again intercede?

“There are in this world blessed souls, whose sorrows all spring up into joys for others; whose earthly hopes, laid in the grave with many tears, are the seed from which spring healing flowers and balm for the desolate and the distressed.” ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Born and raised in one of the “free states” of Connecticut, Stowe’s immersion in abolitionist writings led her to the biographical work, The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself. Inspired by the harrowing conditions slaves experienced, Stowe resolved to make her case against slavery, its evils and immoralities. By channeling the mantra, “the pen is mightier than the sword”, she fashioned one of the most memorable and renowned literary characters in history, Uncle Tom.

Before the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin , abolitionist sentiments in the free states were already starting to percolate. The testimonies of former slaves like Josiah Henson slowly trickled down into the general consciousness. The denizens of the free states, like Stowe were aghast with their discovery, thus starting a movement to call for the abolition of the slave trade. They took their protest to the printed form, hence, the birth of “protest literature” as we know it now. Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is widely credited for the recognition of literature’s power to arouse sentiments and incite change.

Stowe’s depiction of slavery was chiefly influenced by her religious devotions and was further reinforced by her immersion in abolitionist writings. Her debut work was also greatly influenced by her interactions with former slaves while living in Cincinnati. Cincinnati was one of the key stops of the famed Underground Railroad, an intricate network of routes and trails that slaves use to escape to the free states and/or Canada.

The main characters were carefully conjured by Stowe to represent most, if not all, of her personal views. Uncle Tom’s religiosity is one manifestation of these views. From the onset, Christianity was the proverbial “second primary character” in the narrative. It has no physical manifestation but its presence and undercurrents were felt all through out. Uncle Tom’s religiosity is a beacon in the darkness, a hope in a sea of hopelessness.

“But, of old, there was One whose suffering changed an instrument of torture, degradation and shame, into a symbol of glory, honor, and immortal life; and, where His spirit is, neither degrading stripes, nor blood, nor insults, can make the Christian’s last struggle less than glorious.” ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

The story also followed the progress of Eliza as she retreats to the north with her son, Harry. Hot on her tracks is a slave hunter but her maternal instinct was too powerful. But Eliza’s story is more than just a subplot. Through Eliza, Eva and the other key female characters, Stowe is channeling her view of the power to save females innately possess. There were palpable depictions in the story of how female characters saved male characters from injuries or from worse fates.

If there was a glaring disparity in the novel, it would be Uncle Tom’s resolve not to resort into any form of violence. Whilst most view it as a form of cowardice. Guided by his deep Christian faith and belief, he chose to suffer rather than compromise his beliefs. His moral compass is the epitome of integrity. It is yet another manifestation of Stowe’s pietistic views which were deeply embedded into the main theme. Stowe highlighting the incompatibility of slavery to Christianity.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin was written with a melodramatic tone to arouse the sentiments of the general public. Common in the 19th century sentimental novels, such form of style was used to evoke reader’s sympathy and emotion. Upon its publication, Uncle Tom’s Cabin effectively accomplished that. Stowe proved herself capable of influencing emotions through the printed form.

Apart from stirring sentiments, the novel also popularized several stereotypes about black people. From its revolutionary depiction, what rose is the term “Uncle Tom”, the biggest representation of these stereotypes. Although used to discriminate, it is an adjective used to describe a hardworking servant who remains loyal to the needs of his or her white master or mistress.

“Death! Strange that there should be such a word, and such a thing, and we ever forget it; that one should be living, warm and beautiful, full of hopes, desires and wants, one day, and the next be gone, utterly gone, and forever!” ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Beyond its vivid depictions of the ills and errs of the slave trade, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was an even more powerful instrument. In her memorable debut, Stowe reminded the readers of the power that the pen possesses. She reminded us its ability to arouse national sentiments, making other people feel what other people feel. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a fine example of turning the abstract into a reality, into quotidian terms that John Does and Juan dela Cruzes can easily relate to.

The novel’s impact still reverberate today. The first widely-read political novel in the United States, it played a significant role in the development of American literature. It is also a key figure in the growth of protest literature as many authors followed suit. Whilst the novel’s historical context was slowly overshadowed by negative connotations in recent years, its influence and impact in the world of literature is indisputable.

Characters (30%) – 24% Plot (30%) – 27% Writing (25%) – 19 % Overall Impact (15%) – 12%

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s acclaimed masterpiece has piqued my interest ever since I’ve learned about it in my high school history class. It was the inspiration for Philippine National Hero, Dr. Jose Rizal’s two seminal works, Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, two novels that satirized the oppression of Filipinos by the Spanish conquistadors. The parallels are noticeable, both being propagandist works.

Whilst Uncle Tom’s Cabin was meant to awaken sentiments on slavery and, at times, it was brilliant. Uncle Tom, as a character is the epitome of moral ascendancy but it made him, at times, feel ephemeral. And the novel is can be very preachy, rather than sentimental. If there was one facet it succeeded on, it would be use of sentiments to create a bigger impact. Iit was a great reading experience. Imperfect but insightful.

Author: Harriet Beecher Stowe Publisher: Barnes & Noble Classics Publishing Date: 2003 Number of Pages: 515 pages Genre: Historical

The narrative drive of Stowe’s classic novel is often overlooked in the heat of the controversies surrounding its anti-slavery sentiments. In fact, it is a compelling adventure story with richly drawn characters and has earned a place in both literary and American history. Stowe’s puritanical religious beliefs show up in the novel’s final, overarching theme—the exploration of the nature of Christianity and how Christian theology is fundamentally incompatible with slavery.

About the Author

1024px-Harriet_Beecher_Stowe_by_Francis_Holl

Enrolled in the Hartford Female Seminary run by her older sister Catharine, Stowe was indoctrinated in the classics through traditional academic education that was usually reserved for males at that time. When she was 21 years-old, she moved to Cincinnati, Ohio to join her father. She then joined Semi-Colon Club, a literary salon and social club where she met her husband, Rev. Calvin Ellis Stowe.

wasn’t until she reached the age of 40 that Stowe begun to make a career out of writing. After writing to Gamaliel Bailey, editor of the weekly anti-slavery journal The National Era, she begun the first installment of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It was published in June 1851 and succeeding installments were published weekly. Her other works include Our Charley and What to do With Him (1858), The Minister’s Wooing (1859) and Pink and White Tyranny: A Society Novel (1871).

Stowe passed away on July 1, 1896 in Hartford, Connecticut where she helped found Hartford Art School. The school later became part of the University of Hartford.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Harriet beecher stowe, everything you need for every book you read..

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Uncle Tom's Cabin: Introduction

Uncle tom's cabin: plot summary, uncle tom's cabin: detailed summary & analysis, uncle tom's cabin: themes, uncle tom's cabin: quotes, uncle tom's cabin: characters, uncle tom's cabin: symbols, uncle tom's cabin: literary devices, uncle tom's cabin: theme wheel, brief biography of harriet beecher stowe.

Historical Context of Uncle Tom's Cabin

Other books related to uncle tom's cabin.

Full Title: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or, Life Among the Lowly
When Written: 1851-1852
Where Written: Maine
When Published: Serially, between June 5, 1851, and April 1, 1852. As a book on March 20, 1852.
Literary Period: Civil War-era American literature
Genre: Social novel / protest novel
Setting: Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio in the 1840s
Climax: Tom is beaten by Simon Legree yet refuses to abandon his faith
Antagonist: Simon Legree
Point of View: Third-person omniscient

Extra Credit for Uncle Tom's Cabin

“Tom Shows.” Uncle Tom’s Cabin achieved additional fame in an adaptation of the novel for the stage. Many companies toured throughout the Civil War and Reconstruction periods with a version of the “Uncle Tom” story, although racial caricatures and the conventions of comic theatre often mangled the Christian message of the novel and accentuated the racial biases Beecher Stowe had attempted to dismiss.

Race and the novel in contemporary culture. In contemporary times, the term “Uncle Tom” has acquired a derogatory meaning: a black person who is all too willing to serve, without fail, a white superior. Beecher Stowe’s personal view of black people—namely, that they possess qualities making them biologically and culturally distinct from white people—draws particular criticism in today’s society, and with good reason. It is important, then, to read Uncle Tom’s Cabin as a document grappling with issues of race and slavery in their cultural moment, rather than as a perfect and perfectly-argued treatise exposing all forms of discrimination.

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For Black History Month: A Review of Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a novel that I’d heard about since elementary school, but never read until now. February is Black History Month, and I thought I would contribute by writing a short review on the book. I finished the book stunned at what Uncle Tom’s Cabin accomplishes at so many levels, finally understanding why it was the 2nd most popular book of the 19 th century next to the Bible. It is a beautiful piece of literature, an enlightening piece of historical fiction, and maybe the most thoroughly Christian novel I have ever read.

At the center of the novel is Tom, whose character has been tragically misinterpreted in the 20 th and 21 st centuries. The arc of the novel follows the plight of Tom, sold by his relatively benign owner Shelby (to settle a debt) to the unscrupulous slave trader Haley, through whom he finds himself purchased by a new master St. Clare and his kind-hearted young daughter Eva. St. Clare, though treating his slaves humanely and promising their freedom upon his death, tragically procrastinates in incorporating this directive into his final will and testament.

Meeting with a sudden and untimely death while breaking up a bar fight, St. Clare’s slaves pass to his odious wife, Marie, who quickly puts them up for auction. Tom is “sold down the river” from Kentucky to the sadistic plantation owner Lagree in New Orleans. Unlike his previous masters who accorded Tom a measure of dignity, Lagree takes pleasure in “breaking him” to the point that he will be willing to execute Lagree’s brutality over other slaves, but Tom would rather face death than become Lagree’s task master.

For an African-American male to be labeled an “Uncle Tom” today is to be accused of weakness, cowering to white authority, accepting white supremacy. This is an easy interpretation given Tom’s willingness to submit to his masters Shelby and St. Clare, and even the abject cruelty of Lagree. But I believe this is a mischaracterization of Beecher Stowe’s intention for her character of Tom. Quite the opposite, it is hard to conceive of a character, fiction or nonfiction, with the strength that Tom portrays in his relationships with others, not of power, but of selfless love. Contrasted with the absence of institutions and rights that would allow Tom power in the worldly sense, Tom’s power lies in his ability to transform the character of others around him through his faith in the goodness of God and his own goodness stemming from that faith. It is the story of the power of divine love, triumphing in the context of powerlessness and apparent hopelessness.

This being true, Uncle Tom’s Cabin is relentless in its strident anti-slavery message, which reverberates chapter after disconcerting chapter. It is a story about the Christ-like character of Tom, but also about an unyielding plea for social justice. Beecher Stowe wrote the novel as a wake-up call to the North, penetrating the Christian consciences of her readers with a shrill, soul-piercing alarm clock. Beecher Stowe reminds us throughout the novel that slavery was not only bad for the slave; it was bad for the master. It was an institution that destroyed black lives physically, and white lives morally and spiritually. Beecher Stowe portrays slavery quite literally as an institution from hell.

That Uncle Tom’s Cabin has been identified as a major catalyst for the Civil War, perhaps even by Lincoln himself , is a testament to the transforming power of narrative. Often as social scientists and economists we believe that data and reason possess the ultimate power to transform thinking, to shape policy, to create institutions that promote efficiency, justice, and equity. But it seems even more often that rather than data and reason, narrative has the power to connect with people emotionally in a way that leads them to take action. If I had lived in the northern state at the dawn of the Civil War as a young man, Uncle Tom’s Cabin would have driven me to enlist.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin is arguably more relevant today than it has been for over a century. In 21st century America personal character has become subservient to an unyielding quest for individual rights on both the right and the left: the right to my assault rifles, my unfettered access to abortion, my right to marijuana. The one who stomps his foot loudest on social media in the name of his rights and interests wins the affection of the group. Characters such as Tom, wise and humble, are antithetical to the spirit of the age. Uncle Tom’s Cabin urges us to return to the spiritual roots of social justice.

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Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Uncle tom’s cabin: context and resources.

October 22, 2020

By Nancy Kuhl

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin , is unique in 19 th century American print culture. It played an important role in abolitionist movements of the period and it was a popular sensation—songs, stage plays, children’s books, and parlor games allowed readers to encounter the work and its characters in an unprecedented array of formats.

Materials in the Beinecke Library collections related to the novel offer opportunities to consider the publication and reception of this exceptional work and to explore aspects of 19th century American print culture.

An illustrated history of the novel and its reception can be found on the Beinecke Library’s wesite: The Life of Uncle Tom .

Timeline | British Imprints | Additional Resources

Timeline excerpted from Kendra Hamilton’s “ The Strange Career of Uncle Tom: on the 150th Anniversary of the Publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin , Scholars Reflect on the Legacy of the Groundbreaking Novel and its Author Harriet Beecher Stowe ,” in Black Issues in Higher Education , June 6, 2002, 19.8, p. 22.

Selected titles in the Beinecke Library have been added in bullet points, with call numbers in bold and relevant library catalogues and online resources linked.

1850: Passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, requiring all citizens to return runaway slaves to their owners, becomes a major catalyst for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s antislavery writing.

1851: uncle tom’s cabin is serialized in the national era, an abolitionist newspaper..

The National Era , 5 June 1851. Zza Zn 215 v. 5 (Issues of the National Era are available online via Proquest .)

1852: Uncle Tom’s Cabin is published as a two-volume book, precipitating a wave of “anti-Tom” novels defending the South, an enormously profitable merchandising movement and stage adaptations that owed far more to the blackface minstrel tradition than to the ideas in the book.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or, Life among the Lowly . Boston: J. P. Jewett, 1852. Za St78 852 . Selected images available in the digital library . ( Full text online in Orbis)
Criswell, Robert. Uncle Tom’s Cabin Contrasted with Buckingham Hall, the Planter’s Home: or A Fair View of Both Sides of the Slavery Question . New York: Fanshaw, 1852. JWJ Za C868 852u ( Full text online in Orbis )
“The Game of Uncle Tom,” card game. Rhode Island: V. S .W. Parkhurst, 1852. Card Playing Card Collection, USA 185 / Shirley 5552 & online in digital collections
“The Death of St. Clare: Little Eva’s Father, founded upon a scene in Uncle Tom’s Cabin ,” poem by M. A. Collier, adapted to a favorite melody. Boston: Oliver Ditson, [1852]. Shirley +84 ( Full text online )
Howard, F. “Uncle Tom’s Glimpse of Glory.” Boston: Wade, c1852. Za1 +G1 Stowe ( Full text online )
Smith, W. L. G. Life at the South, or, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” as it is: Being Narratives, Scenes, and Incidents in the Real “Life of the Lowly.” Buffalo: G. H. Derby and Co., 1852. JWJ Za Sm68 852L ( Full text online )
Aiken, George L. Uncle Tom’s Cabin: or, Life Among the Lowly, A Domestic Drama in Six Acts . New York: S. French, [18–]. 2016 983 ( Full text online )
Emilio, M. “Little Eva: Song (Little Eva, Uncle Tom’s Guardian Angel).” Boston: Jewett, c1852. Za St78 +G852E ( Full text online )
Waddell, James A. “Uncle Tom’s cabin” reviewed; or, American society vindicated from the aspersions of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe Printed at the Office of the “Southern Weekly Post,” 1852. JWJ Za St78 Tu852W ( Partial text online)
Porcelain figures: Topsy & Eva [Staffordshire, England : s.n., circa 1852-1860?]. Art Storage 925 & online in digital collections
Boston Museum 10 th Season: 6 th Week of the New and Intensely Interesting Play, Uncle Tom’s Cabin! 1852. BrSides Folio 2014 194 ( Full text online )

1853: A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin is published to corroborate the facts of the novel; George Aiken’s unauthorized stage version takes the nation by storm.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin; Presenting the Original Facts and Documents upon which the Story is Founded. Together with Corroborative Statements Verifying the Truth of the Work. Boston, Jewett, 1853. Za St78 853k ( Full text online )
Little Eva: the Flower of the South . New York: Vincent L. Dill, [between 1853 and 1855?]. Shirley 1487 & 1488 ( Full text online )
Low, Mary. A Peep into Uncle Tom’s Cabin with an Address by Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, to the Children of England and America . Boston: J. P. Jewett, 1853. Za St78 853L & online in digital collections ( Full text online )
Pictures and Stories from Uncle Tom’s Cabin , Boston: J. P. Jewett, [1853?]. Za St78 F853 ( Full text online )
Howard, G. “Eva to her Papa.” New York: Waters, c1853. Za St78 +G853 ( Full text online ) ( Listen online )
Porcelain jar decorated with two scenes from Uncle Tom’s cabin [1853-1865?], Boston: Jewett, 1853. Art Storage 926 & online in digital collections
“Mrs. Keeley as Topsy. In the drama of ‘Slave life,’ or, ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ as performed at the Theatre Royal Adelphi.” Stannard & Dixon, 1853. BrSides 2013 166 ( Image available online. )

1854: T. D. Rice, the man who “invented” the Jim Crow dance, plays Tom in a New York production.

Rice, Tom. “Jim Crow: Come Listen All You Galls and Boys I’s Jist from Tuckyhoe.” New York: E. Riley, [between 1819 and 1831]. 2001 Folio S8 V4 R357 J5643 ( Full text online )
Plate: Uncle Tom at home . [Staffordshire, England : s.n., 1855?]. Art Storage 927 & online in digital library

1856: The Dred Scott decision legalizes slavery in the territories; Stowe publishes her militant and neglected antislavery novel, Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp .

1857: sam green, a free black living in maryland, is sentenced to 10 years in prison for owning a copy of uncle tom’s cabin and a map of canada., 1861-65: the civil war years see the rise of theatrical troupes that perform only uncle tom’s cabin —popularly known as “tommers” or “tom shows.”.

“Coming: the Standard Combination in the Great Moral Drama, Uncle Tom’s Cabin .” [United States: s.n., between 1860 and 1865?] (Promotional booklet). Shirley 1489
Porcelain figures: Uncle Tom and Eva [United States? : ca. 1860 - 1880?] Art Storage 940

1862: Stowe meets President Abraham Lincoln at the White House. The Emancipation Proclamation abolishes slavery in rebel territory.

Uncle Tom’s cabin: hand-made playing cards (1 deck–42 cards), 1862 Playing Cards GEN4 & online in digital collections

1865: The 13th Amendment abolishes slavery.

1866: the ku klux klan begins its reign of terror in the south., 1868: the 14th amendment makes citizens of the formerly enslaved., 1870: the 15th amendment guarantees voting rights for the formerly enslaved..

California Theatre, The Famous Drama in 6 Acts, Uncle Tom’s Cabin! BrSides 2006 45 70

1876: The first African American performs the role of Uncle Tom in a production in Richmond, KY.

1877: reconstruction ends with the withdrawal of federal troops from the south., 1878: newspapers note five simultaneous productions of uncle tom’s cabin in london, all of them apparently thriving financially., 1880s: period sees the rise of elaborate spectacles in staging the play: “double mammouth” (sic) productions, inspired by the practice of combining two circus companies into a single “mammouth” show; and the use of live animals, including bloodhounds, great danes and even, in one memorable staging of eliza’s flight across the ice, alligators..

Broadside: Coming soon! Parsons & Pool’s original Uncle Tom’s cabin and Tennessee Jubilee Singers [between 1870 and 1889] BrSides Folio 2004 2 & online in digital collections
Holland, Annie Jefferson. The Refugees: A Sequel to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Austin: Privately Published, 1892. Za St78 H892H
[Collection of advertisements relating to Uncle Tom’s cabin] 9 cards advertising Uncle Tom’s cabin ca. 1880s Za St78 J852 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , & 9

1893: Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a featured attraction at the Chicago World’s Fair.

1896: stowe dies in hartford, conn.; plessy v. ferguson legalizes segregation., 1890s: an estimated 500 “tom” companies are touring the united states..

Topsy . New York: McLoughlin Brothers, Publishers , c1900 . JWJ Za St78 895T ( Available online )

1903: The first film version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin is screened.

Coming– Ora Martin, Inc.– Uncle Tom’s Cabin Under Big Tent [ca. 1900] BrSides Folio 2008 256 ( Available online )
Bruckner doll, New York: E.I. Horsman Company? Between 1901 and 1924? JWJ Za St78 901B

1909: NAACP is founded.

John R. Neill, The Story of Topsy . 1908 Shirley 6637 & online in digital collections ( Full text online )

1910: The first mixed-race companies perform Uncle Tom’s Cabin in New York City.

Quigley Litho Co., Kansas City: catalog no. 56, [191-?] (featuring UTC illustrations) JWJ Za St78 J910Q

1914: An African-American actor plays Tom on screen for the first time.

1915: “birth of a nation” begins the modern film era and gives birth to a revivified ku klux klan as a nationwide political force., 1923: the duncan sisters, rosetta and vivian, bring the play “topsy and eva” to vaudeville. by 1927, they will have played the roles 1,872 times. there are continuous revivals, on stage and television, until rosetta’s death in 1959. more information on topsy and eva is available online . .

Duncan Sisters. “Do Ra Mi.” [United States]: Thomas Wilkes, c1923. 2001 Folio S8 V4 D912 D65
Duncan Sisters. “I Never had a Mammy.” New York: Irving Berlin, Inc., c1923. 2001 Folio S8 V4 D912 Ia1 ( Listen online )
Duncan Sisters. “Just in Love with Me.” New York: Irving Berlin, Inc., c1923. 2001 Folio S8 V4 D912 J892
Duncan Sisters. “Rememb’ring New York.” New York: Irving Berlin, Inc., c1923. 2001 Folio S8 V4 D912 R283

1927: Number of Tom companies dwindles to 12; Universal Studios films a $1.2 million adaptation of the play.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Illustrated by James Daugherty, New York: Coward McCann co. [c1929]. Za St78 852h ( Selected images available online .)
Cummings, E. E. Tom . [New York: Arrow Editions, [1935]. (“ballet” based on Uncle Tom’s Cabin) Za C912 935t
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin . Illustrated by Miguel Covarrubuias. New York: Limited Editions Club, 1938. Za St78 +852J & online in digital collections
Wright, Richard. Uncle Tom’s Children: Four Novellas . New York: Harper & Brothers, 1938. JWJ Zan W936 938Ub ( Complete Text Online )
Wright, Richard. Uncle Tom’s Children, Manuscripts. JWJ Mss 3 boxes 63 and 64
Players Club. “The Players’ Twelfth Annual Revival: Uncle Tom’s Cabin. ” [New York: The Marchbanks Press, 1933]. Za St78 +F933

1940s: Complaints from the NAACP shut the “Tom Shows” down.

Miller, Gilbert. “Harriet.” Play written by Florence Ryerson and Colin Clements, staged by Elia Kazan, and starring Helen Hayes as Harriet Beecher Stowe. New York: Henry Miller’s Theatre, 1943-4. Za St78 +S1
Hughes, Langston. Uncle Tom (Uncle Tom is a legend and a dream…) Drafts, typescript and carbon, corrected ca. 1948, n.d. and Uncle Tom (Within…) Drafts, typescript and carbon, n.d. JWJ Mss 26 Box 386
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin . Introductory remarks and captions by Langston Hughes. New York: Dodd, Mead, [1952]. JWJ Zan H874 952s & online in digital collections .
Hughes, Langston. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin Is Not An Uncle Tom Book, Read It And See.” Draft, carbon, corrected and printed version, [1952 May 24]. JWJ Mss 26 Box 410
Hughes, Langston. “Cabin Known Around the World.” Draft, typescript and carbon, corrected ms, 1952. JWJ MSS 26 Box 289A
Hughes, Langston. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin: An Opera.” Draft, typescript, corrected ms, 1955. JWJ MSS 26 Box 366
Uncle Tom’s Cabin / by Harriet Beecher Stowe; Classic Comics edition, by E. Goodman. Za St78 +H852G

1975: In the first Uncle Tom’s Cabin production of the modern era, New York producers return to the novel to create a “dignified” Tom.

1987: showtime’s “politically correct” uncle tom’s cabin stars avery brooks as uncle tom, phylicia rashad as eliza, and samuel l. jackson as george..

A la case de l’oncle Tom, cafés et thès. [Geneva, Switzerland : s.n., ca. 1986] sugar packet Shirley 5314

1990: The African-American playwright Robert Alexander deconstructs Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the landmark production, I Ain’t Yo’ Uncle .

Alexander, Robert. I Ain’t Yo’ Uncle: The New Jack Revisionist “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” From the stage adaptation by George Aiken of the novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Woodstock, Ill.: Dramatic Publishing, 1996. JWJ Zan AL269 996H ( Complete text online)

Selected British Imprints Related to Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a Tale of Life among the Lowly . Preface by the Earl of Carlisle. London: G. Routledge & Co., 1852. Za St78 852Cc
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin , London, 1853. Extra illustrated by Eugene Bauer. BEIN 2009 1819
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin . Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London: John Cassell, 1852. Za St78 852c
Glover, Stephen. “George’s Song of Freedom .” London: Jefferys, c1853. Za St78 +G853H
Glover, S. “Eva’s Parting Words.” London: Jefferys, c1853. Za St78 +G853G
Glover, S. “Sleep My Child,Let No One Hear You.” London: Jefferys, c1852. Za St78 +G852G & online in digital collections
Linley, George. “Evangeline: Ballad.” London: Chappell, 1852. Za St78 +G852L
Linley. G. “Topsy: I’s So Wicked.” London: Leader, [1852]. Za St78 +G852R
Linley, G. “Emmeline & Cassy: Duet.” London: Chappell, 1852. Za St78 +G852M & online in digital collections
Linley, G. “The Slave Mother: Ballad.” London: Chappell, 1852. Za St78 +G852P
Linley, G. “Eva: Ballad.” London: Chappell, 1852. Za St78 +G852Q
Nicholls, P. R. “Topsy’s Lament.” London: Tolkien, c1852. Za St78 +G852N

Related Resources

Railton, Stephen (UVa), Uncle Tom’s Cabin and American Culture .
Buckner, Jocelyn Louise. “ The Angel and the Imp: The Duncan Sisters’ Performances of Race and Gender. ” Popular Entertainment Studies 2.2 (2011): 55-72.
Peabody, Rebecca. “ Strategies of Visual Intervention: Langston Hughes and ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin. ’” Comparative Literature , vol. 64, no. 2, 2012, pp. 169–191., www.jstor.org/stable/23253931 . Accessed 22 Oct. 2020.

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Uncle Tom's Cabin Paperback – December 4, 2020

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Print length 266 pages
Language English
Publication date December 4, 2020
Dimensions 7.5 x 0.75 x 9.75 inches
ISBN-10 1508480125
ISBN-13 978-1508480129
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Publisher ‏ : ‎ CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (December 4, 2020)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 266 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1508480125
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1508480129
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.2 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.5 x 0.75 x 9.75 inches
#225 in Black & African American Historical Fiction (Books)

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An 1852 review of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in Fraser’s Magazine .

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15 of the Most Influential Books of All-Time

Posted: December 7, 2023 | Last updated: December 7, 2023

Influential writing, like most everything else in the world, is purely subjective. What I consider influential might not be what you consider influential – and that’s fine. However, while not everyone will agree, most will agree that there are certain works that were created throughout the course of history that tend to go on every list of most influential books. For instance, it’s widely agreed that The Holy Bible is one of, if not the most influential book in the history of literature regardless of your personal beliefs and religious affiliation. Read on to find out which 15 books are among the most influential.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

In 1937 it was virtually unheard of for an African American woman to publish a book that touched on both slavery and women’s rights. In a time when racism and segregation was becoming even worse than it was in previous years, Zora Neale Hurston took it upon herself to do just that. Their Eyes Were Watching God is the story of a woman who grows up an unimportant girl and transforms her life. The book follows Janie, the main character, through three marriages and her cognitive ability to stand up for herself against the men in her life and become a better person.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Written in 1951, this book is no longer one only for adults. It’s one many teens find influential today, because the story touches on the difficult lives of teens. The main character, Holden Caulfield, is expelled from an exclusive prep school and the following days discuss in detail his life and his adventures in dealing with growing up. It’s a book of extreme teen angst that is beautifully written, following Holden as he explores New York City and engages with a number of people from all walks of life who help him in his quest.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Moby Dick is one of the most captivating stories of all time. It follows the life of a man by the name of Ishmael who boards a ship to find work. The ship comes complete with a very mysterious captain, Ahab, who walks around on a peg leg fashioned from the jaw of a sperm whale. He recounts the story of the loss of his leg to a sperm whale who goes by Moby Dick, and he takes his crew on a man hunt to find and kill the whale he considers evil. The harrowing tale is one considered highly influential.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Charles Dickens really nails the story of so many in his famous novel, Great Expectations. Pip is an orphan from the UK who becomes an exceptionally wealthy man filled with arrogance and attitude. During his rise to wealth, he makes the decision to abandon those who’ve always been by his side in favor of those who are not his true friends. As events in Pip’s life begin to unfold, he is greatly humbled. Add to that the fact that this is the book that introduces the world to Miss Havisham, and you have one influential novel.

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Written in 1925, The Great Gatsby is one of the most influential books of all time. The cast of characters are truly inspirational and entertaining, and the plot is on point. The book is set in the 1920s and follows the theme of change, decadence and indulgence. Jay Gatsby is a mysterious and very young millionaire obsessed with a socialite. The scene is a fictional Long Island town in 1922, and the storyline is filled with idealism and social upheaval. It’s one of the most prolific stories of all time, adapted only recently into a famous movie.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Emily Bronte died only a year after her only novel was published, which is a crying shame as her talent is immeasurable. In Wuthering Heights, we follow the story of Heathcliff, a man so in love with a woman by the name of Catherine that he is willing to destroy anyone and anything that comes in between him and the love of his life. The story of true love is epic and unforgettable, and it’s the perfect example of the power that greed and jealousy has over a person’s life and its destructive abilities.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

There are few tales that are as captivating and interesting as Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen brings to the table a rare and interesting story of a woman by the name of Elizabeth Bennet, who deals heavily with issues many people might not consider important today, but provide insight into what could be the cause of the downfall of basic etiquette, good manners and a healthy upbringing. Reading this novel, you’re inspired to believe that these basic forms of etiquette could actually change the world in a manner so necessary in current times.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Charlotte Bronte is the sister of Emily Bronte, the author Wuthering Heights. Jane Eyre is a story that is inspiring and influential, and has so far stood the test of time. Jane Eyre endures a difficult life being raised by her cruel aunt after losing her parents until she is sent to boarding school where her life becomes much more enjoyable. She grows up a teacher and eventually decides to take on a different career and falls in love with her mysterious employer, eventually agreeing to marry him. The story of Jane Eyre continues to come with twists and turns no one expected to see, and follows her life with abandon.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

This iconic and classic American novel follows a poor family who loses their home and their farm in Oklahoma during the Great Depression. Left with nothing but hopeless despair, the family is left wondering where to go and what to do, making the ultimate decision to head west for California. As the story unfolds, readers are taken back to a time when life might not be so different than what it is today. The story is so influential it is one of the most assigned reading assignments in college and high school courses throughout the country.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Don Quixote is the ultimate story of love. The main character is madly in love with a woman by the name of Dulcinea, who inspires him to leave his village and employ himself as the kind of man who does good deeds and acts of chivalry. It’s a simple look at the life of a man in love, and his personal story. The book was written in the early 17th century and remains one of the most influential books of all time, often being assigned in college courses to those who want to further their education.

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Set in 1805 Russia, War and Peace is the story of a handful of characters of different financial upbringing morals and ethics. The story follows their lives in the midst of Napoleon’s conquest of Western Europe. As the story unfolds, we see the loss of fortune, the loss of marriage and love, the beginning of change and the beginning of a war that will forever change the lives of the characters introduced at the beginning of the novel. The story is infuriating, touching and impossible to put down until you complete the novel. It remains one of the most influential books of all time.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Written somewhere around the time of 380 BC, Plato, one of history’s greatest philosophers, wrote The Republic. The book is widely read, even today. About law, justice and order, the book was an answer to the question of what motivates people to make the decisions they make and behave in the manner they do. The book explores the culture and society as it was then and remains largely still today, defining the class system and the desire of people to fulfill the roles they were born to play. It’s an intelligent, well-written theory.

The Republic by Plato

This particular book is one of the most famed political writings in history, as well as one of the most influential. While it was written by Niccolo Machiavelli, it was five years after his death before the book was published in 1537. Politics and ethics have been one of the main themes of contention and confusion throughout the history of mankind, and this book explores those contentions. At the time it was written, it directly contradicted the popular Catholic beliefs of the same subject. However, it was considered the first novel that delves into modern politics and philosophy.

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

Written by more than 40 people over the course of 15 centuries, The Holy Bible is the most sacred book in the world, without question. Those who are not affiliated with religion even agree on this simple fact. The Bible is the account of the world when Jesus lived and walked, his deeds and his ultimate sacrifice. Broken down into two testaments, the New and the Old, the Bible recounts the story of Jesus’ life and crucifixion as told by his 12 Apostles, who were firsthand witnesses to his glory and his existence. It’s the most-read book in the world.

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Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
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Uncle Tom's Cabin: Or Life Among the Lowly by Harriet Beecher Stowe

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Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
annie123: 'If you want a heart-wrenching book that explores one of the greatest evils of humanity, whilst still retaining a small piece of hope for change, Uncle Tom's Cabin is for you'</p>
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
September 9, 2021. (Book 893 from 1001 books) - Uncle Tom's cabin; or, life among the lowly, Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly, is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman.
Review: Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe (with an introduction by James M. McPherson). New York: Vintage Books/Library of America: 1991 (originally published 1852). Summary: Stowe's classic novel depicting the evils of slavery, the complicity of North and South, and the aspirations and faith of slaves themselves. Uncle Tom's Cabin was the best-selling novel of the…
Uncle Tom's Cabin
It was published in book form in 1852 by John P. Jewett and is now published by a variety of companies including (but not exclusively) Hurst and Company, Broadview Press, Dover Publications and Barnes and Noble Books. Uncle Tom's Cabin is written for adults, but may be assigned to students in high school.
The Impact of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'
When the magazine pieces were gathered and published in 1852 as "Uncle Tom's Cabin; Or, Life Among the Lowly," the first print run was 5,000. Within a year, the book had sold 300,000 copies ...
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Recommendations from our site. "Uncle Tom's Cabin is an anti-slavery activist novel, written in the run-up to the Civil War. Stowe tried to mediate the widening schism between North and South, but the book had the opposite effect - prodding north and south to greater extremes of rage. With some justice, Uncle Tom's Cabin has been called ...
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin is an abolitionist novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe that was published in serialized form in the United States in 1851-52 and in book form in 1852. It achieved wide-reaching popularity, particularly among white Northern readers, through its vivid dramatization of the experience of slavery.
The Books Briefing: Should We Still Read 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'?
Uncle Tom's Cabin, first published to colossal success in 1852, has been in reputational free fall ever since. Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel about the trials of an enslaved man named Tom who ...
Book Review: Uncle Tom's Cabin
Additionally, the book inspired so many cultural images and stereotypes (some completely counter to Stowe's purpose in the book), that bring their own weight to any reading of the material. All of this makes for a daunting challenge to the modern reader to evaluate the book. Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in 1852. The Civil War would formally ...
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Author interviews, book reviews and lively book commentary are found here. Content includes books from bestselling, midlist and debut authors. The Book Report Network. Our Other Sites. Bookreporter; ... Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Publication Date: June 1, 2002; Paperback: 720 pages; Publisher: Aladdin; ISBN-10: 068985126X; ISBN ...
Book Review # 154: Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin was written with a melodramatic tone to arouse the sentiments of the general public. Common in the 19th century sentimental novels, such form of style was used to evoke reader's sympathy and emotion. Upon its publication, Uncle Tom's Cabin effectively accomplished that. Stowe proved herself capable of influencing ...
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe.Published in two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U.S., and is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the [American] Civil War".. Stowe, a Connecticut-born woman of English descent, was part of the religious ...
Uncle Tom's Cabin Study Guide
Key Facts about Uncle Tom's Cabin. Full Title: Uncle Tom's Cabin, or, Life Among the Lowly. When Written: 1851-1852. Where Written: Maine. When Published: Serially, between June 5, 1851, and April 1, 1852. As a book on March 20, 1852. Literary Period: Civil War-era American literature.
For Black History Month: A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin
This being true, Uncle Tom's Cabin is relentless in its strident anti-slavery message, which reverberates chapter after disconcerting chapter. It is a story about the Christ-like character of Tom, but also about an unyielding plea for social justice. Beecher Stowe wrote the novel as a wake-up call to the North, penetrating the Christian ...
Uncle Tom's Cabin Essays and Criticism
PDF. When Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in 1852, it created an immediate controversy in a United States that was divided—both geographically and politically—by the issue of slavery. It is ...
Uncle Tom's Cabin: Context and Resources
Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, is unique in 19 th century American print culture. It played an important role in abolitionist movements of the period and it was a popular sensation—songs, stage plays, children's books, and parlor games allowed readers to encounter the work and its characters in an unprecedented array of formats.
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe Book Review -Perhaps the most punk rock progressive novel in American history. Follow me on Instagram at https://w...
Uncle Tom's Cabin: Full Book Summary
George Shelby returns to the Kentucky farm, where, after his father's death, he sets all the slaves free in honor of Tom's memory. He urges them to think on Tom's sacrifice every time they look at his cabin and to lead a pious Christian life, just as Tom did. A short summary of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Uncle Tom's Cabin Kindle Edition
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" was the best-selling novel of the nineteenth century and was only outsold by the Bible. The novel became a cultural phenomenon, spawning " Uncle Tom Plays " and giving birth to character tropes "Uncle Tom," "Topsy," "Simon Legree," and others. The novel was banned in many of the Southern states and later in ...
Amazon.com: Uncle Tom's Cabin: 9781508480129: Beecher Stowe, Harriet: Books
Paperback - December 4, 2020. Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly, is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman. Stowe, a Connecticut-born teacher at the Hartford Female Seminary and an active abolitionist ...
Book Review: Uncle Tom's Cabin
Check out my Online Book Club and other awesome learning opportunities for you at: http://audreyrindlisbacher.com/!Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe...
A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin
A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin. A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin is a book by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. It was published to document the veracity of the depiction of slavery in Stowe's anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). First published in 1853 by Jewett, Proctor & Worthington, the book also provides insights into Stowe's own views ...
An 1852 review of *Uncle Tom's Cabin* in *Fraser's Magazine*
A broadside announcing the 1850 passage of the Fugitive Slave Bill. An 1852 review of Uncle Tom's Cabin in Fraser's Magazine. The printed announcement of a theatrical performance of Uncle Tom's Cabin at Methodist Episcopal Church in Hudson, New Hampshire in 1879. A photograph of actors in blackface for an 1896 minstrel show in Mercur, Utah.
15 of the Most Influential Books of All-Time
Uncle Tom's Cabin is a real-life look at the lives of slaves in the mid-1800s. Stowe does not sugarcoat the lives of slaves in the South, what they endure and how they are kept by their owners ...