Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) was a best-selling blockbuster of a novel, the kind of book that made its readers laugh, shake with fear and suspense, and weep---especially weep. Its initial sales were explosive in the United States and even bigger in England, and the book reached a still wider audience as it was passed from hand to hand or read aloud to groups of people (a common nineteenth-century practice). It was even smuggled into communities in the American South where Uncle Tom had been banned, and Stowe was widely regarded as a lying traitor, trying to stir up trouble.

  Harriet Beecher Stowe"s Uncle Tom"s Cabin (1852) was a best-selling blockbuster of a novel, the kind of book that made its readers laugh, shake with fear and suspense, and weep---especially weep. Its initial sales were explosive in the United States and even bigger in England, and the book reached a still wider audience as it was passed from hand to hand or read aloud to groups of people (a common nineteenth-century practice). It was even smuggled into communities in the American South where Uncle Tom had been banned, and Stowe was widely regarded as a lying traitor, trying to stir up trouble.

INTRODUCTION

CHRONOLOGY OF HARRIET BEECHER

  STOWE"S LIFE AND WORK

HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF Uncle

 Tom"s Cabin

UNCLE TOM"S CABIN

NOTES

INTERPRETIVE NOTES

CRITICAL EXCERPTS

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

SUGGESTIONS FOR THE INTERESTED READER