Uncle Tom's Cabin, Or, Life among the Lowly
Uncle Tom's Cabin, Or, Life among the Lowly,novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe, published serially in the National Era (1851–52) and in book form in 1852. During its first year after publication, more than 300,000 copies were sold, and it became the most popular American novel, having a powerful antislavery influence. Attacks upon its truth caused Mrs. Stowe to publish A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853), defending the accuracy of its facts. The story was frequently translated and republished and was successfully dramatized by George Aiken (1852), without Mrs. Stowe's consent.
Uncle Tom is a noble, high-minded, devoutly Christian black slave in the kindly Shelby family. The Shelbys, in financial difficulties, are about to sell their slaves, and the mulatto girl Eliza and her child escape across the frozen Ohio River, but Tom remains because he does not wish to embarrass his master. Separated from his wife and children, he is sold to a...
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