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Cover of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Uncle Tom's Cabin

  • 451 pages · about 8 hours
  • First published 1852
  • 688 editions
  • Free to read

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1 About this book

This unforgettable novel tells the story of Tom, a devoutly Christian slave who chooses not to escape bondage for fear of embarrassing his master. However, he is soon sold to a slave trader and sent down the Mississippi, where he must endure brutal treatment. This is a powerful tale of the extreme cruelties of slavery, as well as the price of loyalty and morality. When first published, it helped to solidify the anti-slavery sentiments of the North, and it remains today as the book that helped move a nation to civil war.

"So this is the little lady who made this big war." Abraham Lincoln's legendary comment upon meeting Mrs. Stowe has been seriously questioned, but few will deny that this work fed the passions and prejudices of countless numbers. If it did not "make" the Civil War, it flamed the embers. That Uncle Tom's Cabin is far more than an outdated work of propaganda confounds literary criticism.

Good for readers who want: a classic, a love story, and a long read.

  • Political
  • Political fiction
  • Classics
  • Romance
  • Slavery
  • Plantation life
  • People who escaped slavery
  • Enslaved people

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3 About Harriet Beecher Stowe

1811–1896

Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe (; June 14, 1811 – July 1, 1896) was an American author and abolitionist. She came from the Beecher family and wrote a popular novel called Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), which depicts the harsh conditions experienced by enslaved African Americans.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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