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| 3/20/1852 |
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Stowe's Cabin, Home & Abroad
On this day in 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin was published. At least one publisher turned the book down on the grounds that a novel by a woman on such a controversial subject was too risky. He must have regretted it: the novel sold 10,000 copies in the first week, 300,000 copies in a year, and became America's first million-seller. It also brought Stowe hate mail -- in one case, a black, human ear. |
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Harriet Beecher Stowe
by John R. Adams
biography |
New Essays on 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'
by Eric J. Sundquist (Editor)
literary criticism |
Slave Narratives (Nat Turner, Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, Henry Bibb, Olaudah Equiano, Sojourner Truth ...)
by William L. Andrews (Editor), Henry Louis, Jr. Gates (Editor)
anthology, fiction, poetry |
The Oxford W.E.B. Du Bois Reader
by W. E. B. Dubois, Eric J. Sundquist (Editor)
anthology, essays, memoirs |
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FIND BOOKS BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
AT
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Uncle Tom's Cabin & American Culture
A comprehensive website offers contextual information about slavery, Evangelical Christianity (and works such as John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress), historical resources, illustrations, anti-slavery texts, and lyrics and audio recordings of songs. Also offers the complete electronic text and reviews and notices from publications including New York Times, New York Observer, Liberator, National Era, The Boston Post, and Graham's Magazine. Selected African-American and pro-slavery responses are also provided. A highly recommended resource for students and teachers. On Stowe's "sequel" work, The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin:
"Stowe wrote this book to defend her novel against one of the most wide-spread complaints that pro-slavery critics lodged against it -- that as an account of slavery Uncle Tom's Cabin was wholly false, or at least wildly exaggerated. Thus The Key is organized around that defensive project, taking up her major characters one at a time, for example, to cite real life equivalents to them. At the same time, defending her novel led her to mount a more aggressive attack on slavery in the South than the novel itself had. In the novel she works hard to be sympathetic to white southerners as well as black slaves; here, her prose seems much angrier, both morally and rhetorically more contemptuous. One explanation for this sharper tone could be the novel's reception in the South, where no one seems to have appreciated her attempt to be fair. Stowe was probably unprepared for the South's shrill rejection of the book." |  | C-Span American Writers
Find a short biography and online documentary video about the writer. Also offers a summary and the complete e-text to Uncle Tom's Cabin. With links to product information about classroom resources for teaching the novel.
"When the Atlantic Monthly was established the next year [1857], she found a ready vehicle for her writings, which she also published in two of her brother's papers, the Independent of New York and the Christian Union. She thereafter led the life of a woman of letters, writing novels, of which The Minister's Wooing (1859) is best known, and many studies of social life in both fiction and essay." | | Domestic Goddesses
Find a short biography, bibliography of works by and about the author, and commentary and analysis on Uncle Tom's Cabin:
"... it remains one of the most influential American texts written by either man or woman. It is possibly the first American social protest novel, and anyone concerned with the state of race relations should read it. Critics often denounce the novel for its often sentimental and stereotyped portrayal of its African-American characters, and for romanticizing slavery, but others answer their claims by saying that the critics have not read or completely understood Stowe's intended message and agenda. Whatever your personal feelings about the novel, and Stowe's agenda, it remains an important text for our history." | | Harriet Beecher Stowe: Mother, Reformer
Examines the author's attitude towards children and motherhood, and how it impacted her world view and writing. Includes a portrait gallery, and selected excerpts from her works and letters.
"... I HAVE BEEN the mother of seven children, the most beautiful and most loved of whom lies buried near my Cincinnati residence. It was at his dying bed and at his grave that I learned what a poor slave mother may feel when her child is torn away from her." | |
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The TinL masthead features photography by
Natasha D'Schommer
, and the book art featured is by Jim Rosenau.
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