Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Context: Like all the Beechers of New England, the daughter of the Reverend Lyman Beecher was enthusiastic about religious matters and the improvement of humanity. In 1836, she married Professor Calvin Stowe, and aided runaway slaves through her Cincinnati, Ohio, station of the "Underground Railroad." From these fugitives and from her brothers in New Orleans, she learned of the cruelty of slavery. So she wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin or Life Among the Lowly, published serially in an abolitionist newspaper, The National Era (June, 1851–April 1852). The work appeared as a novel in 1852 with 300,000 copies sold the first year. Immediately dramatized by G. L. Aikin, and by many others, it was continually performed for almost a century. Though lacking in literary merit, and absurdly sentimental, the novel played an important part in preparing for the American...