Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe - Franklin Library

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. 1984 Franklin Library hardcover. 478 pages, very nice condition.

Full leather cover with raised bands on spine, gilt lettering and full gilt embellishments. All pages are gilt edged, with silk moire endpapers and bookmark.

Uncle Tom's Cabin is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U.S. and is said to have helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War. Stowe, an active abolitionist, featured the character of Uncle Tom, a long-suffering black slave around whom the stories of other characters revolve. The sentimental novel depicts the reality of slavery while also asserting that Christian love can overcome something as destructive as enslavement of fellow human beings.

It is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause in the 1850s. The impact attributed to the book is great, reinforced by a story that when Abraham Lincoln met Stowe at the start of the Civil War, Lincoln declared, “So this is the little lady who started this great war.” The book and the plays it inspired helped popularize a number of stereotypes about black people. These include the affectionate, dark-skinned "mammy"; the "pickaninny" stereotype of black children; and the "Uncle Tom," or dutiful, long-suffering servant faithful to his white master or mistress. In recent years, the negative associations with Uncle Tom's Cabin have, to an extent, overshadowed the historical impact of the book as a vital antislavery tool.