{"product_id":"uncle-toms-cabin-isbn-9780375756931","title":"Uncle Tom's Cabin","description":"When Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in 1852, it became an international blockbuster, selling more than 300,000 copies in the United States alone in its first year. Progressive for her time, Harriet Beecher Stowe was one of the earliest writers to offer a shockingly realistic depiction of slavery. Her stirring indictment and portrait of human dignity in the most inhumane circumstances enlightened hundreds of thousands by revealing the human costs of slavery, which had until then been cloaked and justified by the racist misperceptions of the time. Langston Hughes called it \"a moral battle cry,\" noting that \"the love and warmth and humanity that went into its writing keep it alive a century later,\" and Tolstoy described it as \"flowing from love of God and man.\"\"Uncle Tom's Cabin is the most powerful and enduring work of art ever written about American slavery.\"\u003cbr\u003e—Alfred KazinHarriet Beecher Stowe, a prolific writer best remembered today for \u003cb\u003eUncle Tom's Cabin\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e,\u003c\/i\u003e was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, on June 14, 1811, into a prominent New England family. Her father, Lyman Beecher, was a well-known Congregational minister, and her brother Henry Ward Beecher became a distinguished preacher, orator, and lecturer. Like all the Beechers she grew up with a strong sense of wanting to improve humanity. At the age of thirteen Harriet Beecher enrolled in the Hartford Female Seminary and subsequently taught there until 1832, when the family moved to Cincinnati. In Ohio she was an instructor at a school founded by her elder sister Catharine, and she soon began publishing short stories in the \u003ci\u003eWestern Monthly Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFour years later, in 1836, Harriet Beecher married Calvin Stowe, a respected biblical scholar and theologian by whom she had seven children. In order to supplement the family's meager income she continued writing. \u003cb\u003eThe Mayflower\u003c\/b\u003e, her first collection of stories and sketches, appeared in 1843. During this period abolitionist conflicts rocked Cincinnati, and Mrs. Stowe witnessed firsthand the misery of slaves living just across the Ohio River in Kentucky. But not until the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was she inspired to write about their plight. After the family resettled in Brunswick, Maine, when Mr. Stowe was hired as a professor at Bowdoin College, she began working on a novel that would expose the evils of slavery. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFirst serialized in the \u003ci\u003eNational Era,\u003c\/i\u003e an abolitionist paper, in forty weekly installments between June 5, 1851, and April 1, 1852, and published as a book on March 20, 1852, \u003cb\u003eUncle Tom's Cabin\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003ewas an enormous success. Tolstoy deemed it a great work of literature 'flowing from love of God and man,' and within a year the book had sold more than 300,000 copies. When \u003cb\u003eUncle Tom's Cabin\u003c\/b\u003e appeared in Great Britain Queen Victoria sent Mrs. Stowe a note of gratitude, and enthusiastic crowds greeted the author in London on her first trip abroad in 1853. In an attempt to silence the many critics at home who denounced the work as vicious propaganda, Mrs. Stowe brought out \u003cb\u003eA Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin\u003c\/b\u003e in 1853, which contained documentary evidence substantiating the graphic picture of slavery she had drawn. \u003cb\u003eDred \u003c\/b\u003e(1856), a second antislavery novel, did not enjoy the acclaim of \u003cb\u003eUncle Tom's Cabin\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e,\u003c\/i\u003e yet the author had already stirred the conscience of the nation and the world, fueling sentiments that would ignite the Civil War. When Abraham Lincoln met her at the White House in 1862 he allegedly remarked: 'So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn subsequent novels Stowe shifted her attention away from the issue of slavery. Beginning with \u003cb\u003eThe Minister's Wooing\u003c\/b\u003e (1859), and continuing with \u003cb\u003eThe Pearl of Orr's Island \u003c\/b\u003e(1862), \u003cb\u003eOldtown Folks (\u003c\/b\u003e1869), and \u003cb\u003ePoganuc People\u003c\/b\u003e (1878), she presented a perceptive and realistic chronicle of colonial New England, focusing especially on the theological warfare that underscored Puritan life. In a second and less popular series of novels—\u003cb\u003eMy Wife and I\u003c\/b\u003e (1871), \u003cb\u003ePink and White Tyranny\u003c\/b\u003e (1871), and \u003cb\u003eWe and Our Neighbors\u003c\/b\u003e (1875)—she depicted the mores of post-Civil War America. Mrs. Stowe did enjoy success, however, with the controversial \u003cb\u003eLady Byron Vindicated\u003c\/b\u003e (1870), a bold defense of her friend Anne, Lady Byron, that scandalously revealed Lord Byron's moral delinquency. In addition she became a regular contributor to the \u003ci\u003eAtlantic Monthly\u003c\/i\u003e, which published many of the memorable short stories later collected in \u003cb\u003eOldtown Fireside Stories\u003c\/b\u003e (1872) and \u003cb\u003eSam Lawson's Oldtown Fireside Stories\u003c\/b\u003e (1881). \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHarriet Beecher Stowe wrote little during the last years of her life. She died in Hartford, Connecticut, on July 1, 1896. Perhaps Mrs. Stowe's achievement was best summed up by abolitionist Frederick Douglass who said: 'Hers was the word for the hour.'Late in the afternoon of a chilly day in February, two gentlemen were sitting alone\u003cbr\u003e                    over their wine, in a well-furnished dining parlor, in the town of P—, in Kentucky.\u003cbr\u003e                    There were no servants present, and the gentlemen, with chairs closely\u003cbr\u003e                    approaching, seemed to be discussing some subject with great earnestness. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e                    For convenience sake, we have said, hitherto, two gentlemen. One of the parties,\u003cbr\u003e                    however, when critically examined, did not seem, strictly speaking, to come under\u003cbr\u003e                    the species. He was a short, thick-set man, with coarse, commonplace features, and\u003cbr\u003e                    that swaggering air of pretension which marks a low man who is trying to elbow his\u003cbr\u003e                    way upward in the world. He was much over-dressed, in a gaudy vest of many\u003cbr\u003e                    colors, a blue neckerchief, bedropped gayly with yellow spots, and arranged with a\u003cbr\u003e                    flaunting tie, quite in keeping with the general air of the man. His hands, large and\u003cbr\u003e                    coarse, were plentifully bedecked with rings; and he wore a heavy gold\u003cbr\u003e                    watch-chain, with a bundle of seals of portentous size, and a great variety of colors,\u003cbr\u003e                    attached to it,—which, in the ardor of conversation, he was in the habit of\u003cbr\u003e                    flourishing and jingling with evident satisfaction. His conversation was in free and\u003cbr\u003e                    easy defiance of Murray's Grammar, and was garnished at convenient intervals with\u003cbr\u003e                    various profane expressions, which not even the desire to be graphic in our account\u003cbr\u003e                    shall induce us to transcribe. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e                    His companion, Mr. Shelby, had the appearance of a gentleman; and the\u003cbr\u003e                    arrangements of the house, and the general air of the housekeeping, indicated easy,\u003cbr\u003e                    and even opulent circumstances. As we before stated, the two were in the midst of\u003cbr\u003e                    an earnest conversation. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e                    'That is the way I should arrange the matter,' said Mr. Shelby. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e                    'I can't make trade that way—I positively can't, Mr. Shelby,' said the other, holding\u003cbr\u003e                    up a glass of wine between his eye and the light. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e                    'Why, the fact is, Haley, Tom is an uncommon fellow; he is certainly worth that sum\u003cbr\u003e                    anywhere—steady, honest, capable, manages my whole farm like a clock.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e                    'You mean honest, as niggers go,' said Haley, helping himself to a glass of brandy. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e                    'No; I mean, really, Tom is a good, steady, sensible, pious fellow. He got religion at\u003cbr\u003e                    a camp-meeting, four years ago; and I believe he really did get it. I've trusted him,\u003cbr\u003e                    since then, with everything I have,—money, house, horses,—and let him come and\u003cbr\u003e                    go round the country; and I always found him true and square in everything.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e                    'Some folks don't believe there is pious niggers, Shelby,' said Haley, with a candid\u003cbr\u003e                    flourish of his hand, 'but I do. I had a fellow, now, in this yer last lot I took to\u003cbr\u003e                    Orleans—'twas as good as a meetin', now, really, to hear that critter pray; and he was\u003cbr\u003e                    quite gentle and quiet like. He fetched me a good sum, too, for I bought him cheap\u003cbr\u003e                    of a man that was 'bliged to sell out; so I realized six hundred on him. Yes, I consider\u003cbr\u003e                    religion a valeyable thing in a nigger, when it's the genuine article, and no mistake.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e                    'Well, Tom's got the real article, if ever a fellow had,' rejoined the other. 'Why, last\u003cbr\u003e                    fall, I let him go to Cincinnati alone, to do business for me, and bring home five\u003cbr\u003e                    hundred dollars. 'Tom,' says I to him, 'I trust you, because I think you're a\u003cbr\u003e                    Christian—'I know you wouldn't cheat.' Tom comes back, sure enough; I knew he\u003cbr\u003e                    would. Some low fellows, they say, said to him—'Tom, why don't you make tracks\u003cbr\u003e                    for Canada?' 'Ah, master trusted me, and I couldn't'—they told me about it. I am sorry\u003cbr\u003e                    to part with Tom, I must say. You ought to let him cover the whole balance of the\u003cbr\u003e                    debt; and you would, Haley, if you had any conscience.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e                    'Well, I've got just as much conscience as any man in business can afford to\u003cbr\u003e                    keep,—just a little, you know, to swear by, as 'twere,' said the trader, jocularly; 'and\u003cbr\u003e                    then, I'm ready to do anything in reason to 'blige friends; but this yer, you see, is a\u003cbr\u003e                    leetle too hard on a fellow—a leetle too hard.' The trader sighed contemplatively, and\u003cbr\u003e                    poured out some more brandy. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e                    'Well, then, Haley, how will you trade?' said Mr. Shelby, after an uneasy interval of\u003cbr\u003e                    silence. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e                    'Well, haven't you a boy or gal that you could throw in with Tom?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e                    'Hum!—none that I could well spare; to tell the truth, it's only hard necessity makes\u003cbr\u003e                    me willing to sell at all. I don't like parting with any of my hands, that's a fact.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e                    Here the door opened, and a small quadroon boy, between four and five years of\u003cbr\u003e                    age, entered the room. There was something in his appearance remarkably beautiful\u003cbr\u003e                    and engaging. His black hair, fine as floss silk, hung in glossy curls about his\u003cbr\u003e                    round, dimpled face, while a pair of large dark eyes, full of fire and softness, looked\u003cbr\u003e                    out from beneath the rich, long lashes, as he peered curiously into the apartment. A\u003cbr\u003e                    gay robe of scarlet and yellow plaid, carefully made and neatly fitted, set off to\u003cbr\u003e                    advantage the dark and rich style of his beauty; and a certain comic air of\u003cbr\u003e                    assurance, blended with bashfulness, showed that he had been not unused to\u003cbr\u003e                    being petted and noticed by his master.\"Uncle Tom's Cabin is the most powerful and enduring work of art ever written about American slavery.\" --ALFRED KAZIN","brand":"Modern Library","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304992919781,"sku":"NP9780375756931","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780375756931.jpg?v=1767743195","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/uncle-toms-cabin-isbn-9780375756931","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}