Uncle Tom's Cabin

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Publishers:

Houghton Mifflin Company; Riverside Press

, 1893

Overview

As the best-selling novel of the nineteenth century, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a powerful work of literature that fueled the abolitionist debate in the United States and shifted emotions leading up to the American Civil War.

Through the characters drawn by Stowe in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, both the injustices of slavery and the power of Christian love to overcome destructive circumstances are presented unforgettably. This powerful message changed the course of social thought on liberty and humanity. Selling more than one million copies in the United States and England in its first year, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was second only to the Bible in its reach. Great historical significance and a potent moral message earn this novel a place on the required-reading list of any literary enthusiast.

Key Features

• One of the most influential pieces of literature in American history
• The first American novel to sell over one million copies
• A powerful political statement from the nineteenth century

Endorsements

The most popular novel of our day.

—Ernest Everon, The Ladies’ Companion and Monthly Magazine

A remarkable book . . . whose characters spring to life . . . and come before us, arguing and struggling, like real people that cannot be quiet. . . . If you have never read it, you should.

—Edmund Wilson, author, Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War

Flowing from love of God and man.

—Leo Tolstoy, author, Anna Karenina

A very great novel. . . . a work of art that moved the whole world more than any other book has moved it.

—William Dean Howells, former editor, Atlantic Monthly

Product Details

• Title: Uncle Tom’s Cabin
• Author: Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Publisher: Houghton, Mifflin and Company
• Publication Date: 1893
• Pages: 595

About Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) was an influential American abolitionist and author whose anti slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, reached millions of readers in the United States and Great Britain, and fueled the slavery debate that played a factor in starting the American Civil War. Stowe was deeply involved in the abolitionist movement, and was also a champion for women’s rights. She was one of the founders of the Hartford Art School in Connecticut, which later became part of the University of Hartford. Coming from a strongly religious and outspoken family headed by her father, Lyman Beecher, Stowe’s siblings included ministers Henry Ward Beecher, Edward Beecher, and Charles Beecher, as well as author and educator Catharine Beecher. During her life, Stowe wrote more than 20 books, including The Minister’s Wooing, The Poor Life, and Women in Sacred History.