Illustrative Material includes slave advertisements; runaway slave posters; illustrations for the first British edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Britain's premier illustrator, George Cruikshank; as well as popular illustrations from American editions of the novel.

In the nineteenth century Uncle Tom's Cabin sold more copies than any book in the world except the Bible. It was quickly translated into thirty-seven languages and has never [gone out of print. The book had far-reacbin· impact and deeply alfected the national conscience of antebellum America. TheNorton Critical Edition text is that of the 1852 book edition, published in two volumes by John P. Jewett and Company, Boston; all original illustrations are included. Annotations are provided to assist the reader with obscure historical terms and biblical references.

"Backgrounds and Contexts" includes a weahh of historical documentation dealing with the issues of slavery and abolitionism. Among the documents are Josiah Henson's 1849 slave narrative (named by Stowe as one of her sources for the novel), Solomon Northup's eyewitness account of an 1841 slave auction, Harriet Jacobs's narrative of her life as a fifteen-year-old slave, two epistolary accounts by ex-slave and abolitionist William Wells Brown that document events in Uncle Tom's Cabin, two crucial excerpts from Stowe's Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin that provide the real-life basis for characters and events in the novel, and accounts of Tom-Shows and the anti-Uncle Tom literature that sprang up in response to the novel's publication. Illustrative Material includes slave advertisements; runaway slave posters; illustrations for the first British edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Britain's premier illustrator, George Cruikshank; as well as popular illustrations from American editions of the novel.

"Criticism" is arranged under two headings: "Nineteenth-Century Reviews and Reception" includes critiques by George Sand, William G. Allen and Ethiop (both from Frederick Douglass' Paper), George F. Holmes, and Paul Laurence Dunbar, among others. "Twentieth-Century Criticism" collects five of the best essays written on the novel in this century; they are by James Baldwin, Jane P. Tompkins, Robert S. Levine, Hortense I. Spillers,and Christina Zwarg.

A Chronology of Stowe's life and work and a Selected Bibliography are also included.

Preface

A Note on the Text

Acknowledgments

The Text of Uncle Tom's Cabin

 First-edition title page

 Preface

 Table of Contents

 Uncle Tom's Cabin

Backgrounds and Contexts

 Map: The Eastern United States in the Antebellum Period

 Slave Sale Announcements

 Runaway Slave Advertisements

 Josiah Henson·Life of Josiah Henson

 Solomon Northup·A Slave Auction Described by a Slave, 1841

 Harriet lacobs·The Trials of Girlhood

 William Wells Brown·Another Kidnapping, 1844

 ·The Flight of Ellen and William Craft, 1849

 Harriet Beecher Stowe·[Letter to the Abolitionist Eliza Cabot Follen]

 From The Key to "Uncle Tom's Cabin" Uncle Tom

 The Execution of Justice

 Appeal to the Women of the Free States

 George M. Fredrickson·Uncle Tom and the Anglo-Saxons: Romantic Racialism in the North

 George Cruikshank·Illustration: Tom reading his Bible.

 Illustration: The poor bleeding heart.

 Illustration: Emmeline about to be sold to the highest bidder.

 Thomas F. Gossett·Anti-Uncle Tom Literature

 Mary C. Henderson·Tom-Shows

 Tom-Show Poster

Criticism

 NINETEENTH-CENTURY REVIEWS AND RECEPTION

 George Sand·Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin

 William G. Allen·[About Uncle Tom's Cabin]

 Ethiop·]Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin]

 George F. Holmes·[Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin]

 Anonymous·[Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin]

 Charles Dudley Warner·[Uncle Tom's Cabin a Half Century Later]

 Frances Ellen Watkins [Harper]·Eliza Harris

 Helen Gray Cone·[Harriet Beecher Stowe and American Women Writers]

 Paul Laurence Dunbar·Harriet Beecher Stowe

 G. Grant Williams·Reminiscences of the Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Her Family

MODERN CRITICAL VIEWS

 James Baldwin·Everybody's Protest Novel

 Jane P. Tompkins·Sentimental Power: Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Politics of Literary History

 Robert S. Levine·Uncle Tom's Cabin in Frederick Douglass' Paper: An Analysis of Reception

 Hortense Spillers·Changing the Letter: The Yokes, the Jokes of Discourse, or, Mrs. Stowe, Mr. Reed

 Christina Zwarg·Fathering and Blackface ill Uncle Tom's Cabin

Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Chronology

Selected Bibliography