The sentimental novel that acted as a catalyst for the American Civil War, 04 Dec 2007
Uncle Tom's Cabin is one of the most important and popular novels in literary history. One hundred and fifty years on it remains as controversial as it was at the time of its publication and has spawned the term Uncle Tom to describe black people who are excessively meek and submissive in the face of racial abuse and prejudice. The debate today though is not about the morality of slavery, which is universally reviled, but instead focuses on whether or not the author inadvertently demeans and degrades the very people for whom she sought both dignity and liberation.
The novel begins in relatively liberal Kentucky in the home of a `liberal' slave owner and his wife who are reluctantly forced to sell two of their slaves to an unscrupulous dealer due to severe financial difficulties. On hearing that her son is about to be sold, mulatto Eliza flees across a frozen river with her little boy and heads for free Canada with the aid of sympathetic Quakers, meeting up with her bitter, estranged husband along the way. In contrast, pious Tom accepts severance from his family and his fate at the slave auction with resigned docility and is fortunate at first to be reassigned to a family headed by another liberal-inclined slaver. It is here that we meet the golden-haired (of course) little angel Eva, daughter of Tom's new master and his unsympathetic wife. Eva has bottomless compassion for Tom and the other slaves and servants and is adored in turn until she dies in one of the most saccharine death scenes in literature, reminiscent of the death of Bambi's mother. Eva's father promises his daughter on her deathbed that he would grant Tom his liberty but this promise is ignored by Eva's mother after his death and Tom is resold to the theatrically evil dealer Legree.
If Uncle Tom's Cabin did not contain scenes of emotional power and lyrical writing it would have been long-since forgotten. Despite Tom's cringing servility and all the black characters being apparently trapped in some kind of evolutionary stasis, a moving sincerity flows throughout the book and the effect it had on the conscience of nineteenth century America cannot be overstated. However, the world has moved on (allegedly) and in the end, the cloying sentimentality and the disturbing notion that Congregationalist Christianity is the only means available for gaining the freedom and dignity of the gentle, saintly slaves and redeeming the souls of their corrupt masters become overwhelming.



Incredible. I commend you, Mrs Stowe., 18 Sep 2006
Uncle Tom's Cabin, is a fictional novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. A novel that eventually caused the outbreak of the great American civil war, and the novel that accomplished the Abolitionist in their mission of emancipation of captives, the slaves. A novel that made Stowe the most famous woman in literature, albeit the most controversial. Though it is a fictional novel, but Stowe insists that many parts of the novel are the excerpts from true accounts of slaves and fugitives. And that many similar parables were to be found in the slave states of America, at that time. Stowe, intially anticipated much less of the novel that it would just buy her a new dress, but, as the time unfolded, it escalated her to the heights of fame and controversy. At that time, it sold millions of the copies and made Stowe the most famous and wealthy writer of her era.

The novel is full of emotions and makes you get in their (slaves) shoes. I felt ecstatic when they were contented. I felt doleful when they are traumatised. A person so rigid like me, got his throat dry at some incidents. At the same time, makes you sympathetic towards them. The most distinguished hallmark of Stowe's work is her mesmerising depiction of characters, places and situations. Very artistic, indeed! The novel is so full of emotions, that if you stab the book, it will bleed. Bleed with the pathetic accounts of fugitives, slaves and utter and gross discrimination of the blacks at that time. Moreover, the novel also points out the religious inclination of Stowe, after going through characters of little Eva and the Christ like, Uncle Tom at his death bed. Though the religious exaggeration at few places reaches the frontier of fakery.

Let it as it may be, I will, without a doubt, recommend this to any one who really wants to read an emotional and touching novel. According to my presumption, the children under the age of 15 may not feel the granduer of novel, as adults.

A wonderfully hopeful and uplifting story, 28 Aug 2006
By the time I had got to page 47 I was hooked! I found the language a little slower to read than normal, having to get used to the speech of the slaves being written as it sounded, but I actually got to quite like that.
Harriet Beecher Stowe writes as if she's the narrator and I could almost see her at the side of the stage inviting us to see the next scene.

As we follow the lives of Uncle Tom, Eliza and George, the many people they encounter and whose lives they touch, and whose lives touched them, I cried and I smiled and I felt very humble. This is a very moving book yet oddly without being sentimental and that is to the author's credit. She writes well and makes every character very real and their situations both heartwrenching yet uplifting. A book that not only gives a valuble insight into life at the time in 'Kentuck' and what it was like to be 'sold down the river'....but one that gave me a hope and uplifting that I'd like to stay with me for some time to come.

An outstanding story, 28 Feb 2005
Uncle Tom's Cabin is a very melodramatic book. I have read it several times over the past twenty years and must say that it has something new for every decade or even for every generation. When considered for our time, Uncle Tom's stands out as a classic prose that hits directly at those turbulent times before the Civil War, and reflects issues of war and principles today. Harriet Beecher Stowe had a great cause to write about and wrote a work that still is as relevant today as it was during his time.

The author's masterful story summarizes the conflicting attitudes of a nation on the brink of civil war. Melodramatic though it is, it was written in the style of the times and for a situation that required it. This is a highly recommended book.

Also recommended: DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, WAR AND PEACE, THE USURPER AND OTHERS

An utterly moving book, 07 Apr 2001
This book has to be amongst the most powerful and emotional book on slavery that I have ever read. The other reviewers have said all there is to say, so all I can add to that is READ IT! I totally admire this author for speaking out and stirring up emotions as she has, it is a masterpiece - I rest my case.

The sentimental novel that acted as a catalyst for the American Civil War, 04 Dec 2007
Uncle Tom's Cabin is one of the most important and popular novels in literary history. One hundred and fifty years on it remains as controversial as it was at the time of its publication and has spawned the term Uncle Tom to describe black people who are excessively meek and submissive in the face of racial abuse and prejudice. The debate today though is not about the morality of slavery, which is universally reviled, but instead focuses on whether or not the author inadvertently demeans and degrades the very people for whom she sought both dignity and liberation.
The novel begins in relatively liberal Kentucky in the home of a `liberal' slave owner and his wife who are reluctantly forced to sell two of their slaves to an unscrupulous dealer due to severe financial difficulties. On hearing that her son is about to be sold, mulatto Eliza flees across a frozen river with her little boy and heads for free Canada with the aid of sympathetic Quakers, meeting up with her bitter, estranged husband along the way. In contrast, pious Tom accepts severance from his family and his fate at the slave auction with resigned docility and is fortunate at first to be reassigned to a family headed by another liberal-inclined slaver. It is here that we meet the golden-haired (of course) little angel Eva, daughter of Tom's new master and his unsympathetic wife. Eva has bottomless compassion for Tom and the other slaves and servants and is adored in turn until she dies in one of the most saccharine death scenes in literature, reminiscent of the death of Bambi's mother. Eva's father promises his daughter on her deathbed that he would grant Tom his liberty but this promise is ignored by Eva's mother after his death and Tom is resold to the theatrically evil dealer Legree.
If Uncle Tom's Cabin did not contain scenes of emotional power and lyrical writing it would have been long-since forgotten. Despite Tom's cringing servility and all the black characters being apparently trapped in some kind of evolutionary stasis, a moving sincerity flows throughout the book and the effect it had on the conscience of nineteenth century America cannot be overstated. However, the world has moved on (allegedly) and in the end, the cloying sentimentality and the disturbing notion that Congregationalist Christianity is the only means available for gaining the freedom and dignity of the gentle, saintly slaves and redeeming the souls of their corrupt masters become overwhelming.



Incredible. I commend you, Mrs Stowe., 18 Sep 2006
Uncle Tom's Cabin, is a fictional novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. A novel that eventually caused the outbreak of the great American civil war, and the novel that accomplished the Abolitionist in their mission of emancipation of captives, the slaves. A novel that made Stowe the most famous woman in literature, albeit the most controversial. Though it is a fictional novel, but Stowe insists that many parts of the novel are the excerpts from true accounts of slaves and fugitives. And that many similar parables were to be found in the slave states of America, at that time. Stowe, intially anticipated much less of the novel that it would just buy her a new dress, but, as the time unfolded, it escalated her to the heights of fame and controversy. At that time, it sold millions of the copies and made Stowe the most famous and wealthy writer of her era.

The novel is full of emotions and makes you get in their (slaves) shoes. I felt ecstatic when they were contented. I felt doleful when they are traumatised. A person so rigid like me, got his throat dry at some incidents. At the same time, makes you sympathetic towards them. The most distinguished hallmark of Stowe's work is her mesmerising depiction of characters, places and situations. Very artistic, indeed! The novel is so full of emotions, that if you stab the book, it will bleed. Bleed with the pathetic accounts of fugitives, slaves and utter and gross discrimination of the blacks at that time. Moreover, the novel also points out the religious inclination of Stowe, after going through characters of little Eva and the Christ like, Uncle Tom at his death bed. Though the religious exaggeration at few places reaches the frontier of fakery.

Let it as it may be, I will, without a doubt, recommend this to any one who really wants to read an emotional and touching novel. According to my presumption, the children under the age of 15 may not feel the granduer of novel, as adults.

A wonderfully hopeful and uplifting story, 28 Aug 2006
By the time I had got to page 47 I was hooked! I found the language a little slower to read than normal, having to get used to the speech of the slaves being written as it sounded, but I actually got to quite like that.
Harriet Beecher Stowe writes as if she's the narrator and I could almost see her at the side of the stage inviting us to see the next scene.

As we follow the lives of Uncle Tom, Eliza and George, the many people they encounter and whose lives they touch, and whose lives touched them, I cried and I smiled and I felt very humble. This is a very moving book yet oddly without being sentimental and that is to the author's credit. She writes well and makes every character very real and their situations both heartwrenching yet uplifting. A book that not only gives a valuble insight into life at the time in 'Kentuck' and what it was like to be 'sold down the river'....but one that gave me a hope and uplifting that I'd like to stay with me for some time to come.

An outstanding story, 28 Feb 2005
Uncle Tom's Cabin is a very melodramatic book. I have read it several times over the past twenty years and must say that it has something new for every decade or even for every generation. When considered for our time, Uncle Tom's stands out as a classic prose that hits directly at those turbulent times before the Civil War, and reflects issues of war and principles today. Harriet Beecher Stowe had a great cause to write about and wrote a work that still is as relevant today as it was during his time.

The author's masterful story summarizes the conflicting attitudes of a nation on the brink of civil war. Melodramatic though it is, it was written in the style of the times and for a situation that required it. This is a highly recommended book.

Also recommended: DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, WAR AND PEACE, THE USURPER AND OTHERS

An utterly moving book, 07 Apr 2001
This book has to be amongst the most powerful and emotional book on slavery that I have ever read. The other reviewers have said all there is to say, so all I can add to that is READ IT! I totally admire this author for speaking out and stirring up emotions as she has, it is a masterpiece - I rest my case.

An outstanding story, 10 Mar 2005
Uncle Tom's Cabin is a very melodramatic book. I have read it several times over the past twenty years and must say that it has something new for every decade or even for every generation. When considered for our time, Uncle Tom's stands out as a classic prose that hits directly at those turbulent times before the Civil War, and reflects issues of war and principles today. Harriet Beecher Stowe had a great cause to write about and wrote a work that still is as relevant today as it was during his time.

The author's masterful story summarizes the conflicting attitudes of a nation on the brink of civil war. Melodramatic though it is, it was written in the style of the times and for a situation that required it. This is a highly recommended book.

Also recommended: DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, WAR AND PEACE, THE USURPER AND OTHERS

The sentimental novel that acted as a catalyst for the American Civil War, 04 Dec 2007
Uncle Tom's Cabin is one of the most important and popular novels in literary history. One hundred and fifty years on it remains as controversial as it was at the time of its publication and has spawned the term Uncle Tom to describe black people who are excessively meek and submissive in the face of racial abuse and prejudice. The debate today though is not about the morality of slavery, which is universally reviled, but instead focuses on whether or not the author inadvertently demeans and degrades the very people for whom she sought both dignity and liberation.
The novel begins in relatively liberal Kentucky in the home of a `liberal' slave owner and his wife who are reluctantly forced to sell two of their slaves to an unscrupulous dealer due to severe financial difficulties. On hearing that her son is about to be sold, mulatto Eliza flees across a frozen river with her little boy and heads for free Canada with the aid of sympathetic Quakers, meeting up with her bitter, estranged husband along the way. In contrast, pious Tom accepts severance from his family and his fate at the slave auction with resigned docility and is fortunate at first to be reassigned to a family headed by another liberal-inclined slaver. It is here that we meet the golden-haired (of course) little angel Eva, daughter of Tom's new master and his unsympathetic wife. Eva has bottomless compassion for Tom and the other slaves and servants and is adored in turn until she dies in one of the most saccharine death scenes in literature, reminiscent of the death of Bambi's mother. Eva's father promises his daughter on her deathbed that he would grant Tom his liberty but this promise is ignored by Eva's mother after his death and Tom is resold to the theatrically evil dealer Legree.
If Uncle Tom's Cabin did not contain scenes of emotional power and lyrical writing it would have been long-since forgotten. Despite Tom's cringing servility and all the black characters being apparently trapped in some kind of evolutionary stasis, a moving sincerity flows throughout the book and the effect it had on the conscience of nineteenth century America cannot be overstated. However, the world has moved on (allegedly) and in the end, the cloying sentimentality and the disturbing notion that Congregationalist Christianity is the only means available for gaining the freedom and dignity of the gentle, saintly slaves and redeeming the souls of their corrupt masters become overwhelming.



Incredible. I commend you, Mrs Stowe., 18 Sep 2006
Uncle Tom's Cabin, is a fictional novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. A novel that eventually caused the outbreak of the great American civil war, and the novel that accomplished the Abolitionist in their mission of emancipation of captives, the slaves. A novel that made Stowe the most famous woman in literature, albeit the most controversial. Though it is a fictional novel, but Stowe insists that many parts of the novel are the excerpts from true accounts of slaves and fugitives. And that many similar parables were to be found in the slave states of America, at that time. Stowe, intially anticipated much less of the novel that it would just buy her a new dress, but, as the time unfolded, it escalated her to the heights of fame and controversy. At that time, it sold millions of the copies and made Stowe the most famous and wealthy writer of her era.

The novel is full of emotions and makes you get in their (slaves) shoes. I felt ecstatic when they were contented. I felt doleful when they are traumatised. A person so rigid like me, got his throat dry at some incidents. At the same time, makes you sympathetic towards them. The most distinguished hallmark of Stowe's work is her mesmerising depiction of characters, places and situations. Very artistic, indeed! The novel is so full of emotions, that if you stab the book, it will bleed. Bleed with the pathetic accounts of fugitives, slaves and utter and gross discrimination of the blacks at that time. Moreover, the novel also points out the religious inclination of Stowe, after going through characters of little Eva and the Christ like, Uncle Tom at his death bed. Though the religious exaggeration at few places reaches the frontier of fakery.

Let it as it may be, I will, without a doubt, recommend this to any one who really wants to read an emotional and touching novel. According to my presumption, the children under the age of 15 may not feel the granduer of novel, as adults.

A wonderfully hopeful and uplifting story, 28 Aug 2006
By the time I had got to page 47 I was hooked! I found the language a little slower to read than normal, having to get used to the speech of the slaves being written as it sounded, but I actually got to quite like that.
Harriet Beecher Stowe writes as if she's the narrator and I could almost see her at the side of the stage inviting us to see the next scene.

As we follow the lives of Uncle Tom, Eliza and George, the many people they encounter and whose lives they touch, and whose lives touched them, I cried and I smiled and I felt very humble. This is a very moving book yet oddly without being sentimental and that is to the author's credit. She writes well and makes every character very real and their situations both heartwrenching yet uplifting. A book that not only gives a valuble insight into life at the time in 'Kentuck' and what it was like to be 'sold down the river'....but one that gave me a hope and uplifting that I'd like to stay with me for some time to come.

An outstanding story, 28 Feb 2005
Uncle Tom's Cabin is a very melodramatic book. I have read it several times over the past twenty years and must say that it has something new for every decade or even for every generation. When considered for our time, Uncle Tom's stands out as a classic prose that hits directly at those turbulent times before the Civil War, and reflects issues of war and principles today. Harriet Beecher Stowe had a great cause to write about and wrote a work that still is as relevant today as it was during his time.

The author's masterful story summarizes the conflicting attitudes of a nation on the brink of civil war. Melodramatic though it is, it was written in the style of the times and for a situation that required it. This is a highly recommended book.

Also recommended: DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, WAR AND PEACE, THE USURPER AND OTHERS

An utterly moving book, 07 Apr 2001
This book has to be amongst the most powerful and emotional book on slavery that I have ever read. The other reviewers have said all there is to say, so all I can add to that is READ IT! I totally admire this author for speaking out and stirring up emotions as she has, it is a masterpiece - I rest my case.

An outstanding story, 10 Mar 2005
Uncle Tom's Cabin is a very melodramatic book. I have read it several times over the past twenty years and must say that it has something new for every decade or even for every generation. When considered for our time, Uncle Tom's stands out as a classic prose that hits directly at those turbulent times before the Civil War, and reflects issues of war and principles today. Harriet Beecher Stowe had a great cause to write about and wrote a work that still is as relevant today as it was during his time.

The author's masterful story summarizes the conflicting attitudes of a nation on the brink of civil war. Melodramatic though it is, it was written in the style of the times and for a situation that required it. This is a highly recommended book.

Also recommended: DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, WAR AND PEACE, THE USURPER AND OTHERS

Literature And History, 14 Jun 2008
There are some books which one gets to know by reputation before one actually reads them. "Uncle Tom's Cabin (or, Life Among the Lowly)" by Harriet Beecher Stowe is one of them. Whether from studying American History and slavery, and hearing the pejorative term "Uncle Tom", one gets a strong sense for certain aspects of the book. For whatever reason, I had not read the book until recently, when studying in more detail the history of slavery in the U.S. made this a necessity in my view.

The history of how this book came about is important to the overall experience as well. The 1850 Compromise had seemed to settle the slavery question, before Stephen A. Douglas used its existence as a justification for his argument that the Missouri Compromise had been overturned. However, part of the Compromise included a slave-catching bill which created outcries from the abolitionist movement, and led a thirty-nine year old Harriet Beecher Stowe to write what would become perhaps the most important publication in the history of the Untied States.

The change in public sentiment after its publication was dramatic. Its initial publication in the "National Era" as a 40 part serial, starting with the June 5, 1851 issue, did not draw a lot of notice outside of the abolitionist movement, but its publication as a complete book on March 20th of 1852 resulted in it being the most successful novel ever written up to that point. It was called by one critic at the time "The most valuable addition that America has made to English literature", and it has become a piece of history itself, as well as a classic piece of literature.

In the initial part of the story there are three key slave characters to this story: the title character, Uncle Tom, Eliza (there is also her young son Harry), and George Harris. George is Eliza's husband and Harry's father, and is owned by Mr. Harris, who abuses George, mainly due to his being jealous of George's talents. Eliza, Harry, and Tom are owned by Mr. and Mrs. Shelby. The Shelby's are good to their slaves, yet due to some financial mishaps, Arthur Shelby decides that he is forced to sell off Tom, and is then talked into selling Harry as well to fully clear his debt. This is the opening scene of the novel, and it sets the tone for the rest of the book.

Eliza learns of the sale of Harry and flees with her son in order to save him. She is also aware of her husband's intent to flee from his brutal master. George does also flee and both of them make their way into Ohio where they manage to unite. Tom, learns the reason for his sale, and decides that it is best for his master and the rest of the slaves owned by the Shelby's, and thus he obediently goes along with the sale. The fleeing slaves go north, while Tom is taken south.

The three characters are very distinct and important. Stowe uses Eliza to show the perspective of a female slave. Her family kept apart by slavery, and threatened to be parted from her son, she flees in fear and in do so gains freedom and her family reunited. George is equally important, as by defying an abusive owner, he too gains his freedom and his family by not following the law. In his words we hear the echo of Patrick Henry when he says "I'll be free, or I'll die!" Stowe uses these characters to show the fallacy of the common belief of the time that slaves don't have the same sense of family. She also defies common belief by portraying George as smart and talented and passionate about his thirst for freedom. Of course, the comparison between the dire conditions for George in slavery as well as the broken family situation verses that which they have once they flee is significant. Stowe leaves George, Eliza, and Harry for a long period in the middle of the book, but she does return to them in a chapter near the end to finish their story.

The other character, Uncle Tom, is the most controversial. His almost infuriating obedience and subservience to his masters in the story resulted in the creation of the derisive term "Uncle Tom". His character today reads as one who is not intelligent, and someone who blindly follows his master and his religion. In my opinion, it was important to have him as the central hero of the story and important that he act as the "ideal slave" would act. One key point is the contrast between what happens to an "ideal" slave who does what the master tells him to do, and the "bad" slaves who run away. Unlike Eliza and George, Tom loses his wife and children when his master sells him.

Another important aspect of Tom is that he is always, by far, more moral than those that supposedly "own" him. Even the relatively benign Arthur Shelby allows his personal needs to not only sell Tom, but in doing so breaking his promise to free him, and beyond that, he fails to make a real effort to regain Tom, which he also promises to do. This contrast serves its purpose well. Tom is not dumb, and his faith is pure and true, unlike the faith of the slave-owners which they have had to twist to convince themselves that slavery is a moral good.

Tom's second master is Augustine St. Clare, who inherited a plantation in Louisiana, and though he feels slavery is a sin, it is a sin he is unable to abstain from. His cousin, Miss Ophelia St. Clare, is from New England and argues with him to try to get him to give up his slaves. His response is to have her try to raise and educate a wild young slave girl called Topsy. Though separated from his family, Tom is still able to correspond through an exchange of letters, which gives both himself and his loved ones hope of being reunited. Tom's obedience again earns his master's trust, good treatment, and promise of freedom, but a tragedy results in Tom being sold again.

Tom's third master is the infamous Simon Legree, a brutal master who trusts no slave, and who finds Tom too soft. At this point, Tom's separation from his family is complete, there is no communication at all. It is here where Tom refuses to do as his new master acts, and the reader learns that Tom has never really been a slave, that his actions have always been carried out because he believed they were the best course of action. He will not let Legree turn him into a Slave Driver, and he will readily sacrifice himself for others, as he has done throughout.

Though the slang can be difficult to navigate, and there are certainly other weaknesses as well, such as a wrap-up which is a bit too neat and some ideas on Liberia which demonstrate the racism which was even there in those that were against slavery, this is a book which every American ought to read and experience. When initially published, the book did well not only in the Northern part of the United States, but in Europe as well. Stowe makes use of the current events of the time in her narrative. For example, in one of the narrative comments, Stowe makes a comparison to a runaway slave and a Hungarian defying the law and making his way to America, which is a clear reference to the Hungarian, Louis Kossuth, fleeing Austria and the hero's welcome he received when he came to the United States.

The edition I am reviewing is the Penguin Classics which includes an introduction titled "The Art of Controversy" by Ann Douglas. It provides some good insight into Harriet Beecher Stowe's life and her writing of this novel, but I did think she somewhat oversimplified some of the historical context. Nevertheless, I would definitely highly recommend the novel.


More than one might expect, 24 Feb 2003
Anecdotal history claims that Abraham Lincoln described Harriet Beecher Stowe (to her face) as 'the little lady' who started the Civil War. The phrase 'Uncle Tom' has now passed into the popular lexicon, and many more people know this book by reputation than have actually read it. It began as a serialized drama printed in US periodicals, and went on to become a best selling novel. It is the work of an ardent abolitionist, and Christian, and this shows. The novel is unashamedly didactic, and works principally by an appeal to the reader's emotions. And it works very well. Harriett Beecher Stowe lost one of her own children before writing this novel, and one cannot help but feel that this was what allowed her to write so emotively on the subject. The novel is long, but it flies by: HBS has a gift for narrative, character, and suspense.

The sentimental novel that acted as a catalyst for the American Civil War, 04 Dec 2007
Uncle Tom's Cabin is one of the most important and popular novels in literary history. One hundred and fifty years on it remains as controversial as it was at the time of its publication and has spawned the term Uncle Tom to describe black people who are excessively meek and submissive in the face of racial abuse and prejudice. The debate today though is not about the morality of slavery, which is universally reviled, but instead focuses on whether or not the author inadvertently demeans and degrades the very people for whom she sought both dignity and liberation.
The novel begins in relatively liberal Kentucky in the home of a `liberal' slave owner and his wife who are reluctantly forced to sell two of their slaves to an unscrupulous dealer due to severe financial difficulties. On hearing that her son is about to be sold, mulatto Eliza flees across a frozen river with her little boy and heads for free Canada with the aid of sympathetic Quakers, meeting up with her bitter, estranged husband along the way. In contrast, pious Tom accepts severance from his family and his fate at the slave auction with resigned docility and is fortunate at first to be reassigned to a family headed by another liberal-inclined slaver. It is here that we meet the golden-haired (of course) little angel Eva, daughter of Tom's new master and his unsympathetic wife. Eva has bottomless compassion for Tom and the other slaves and servants and is adored in turn until she dies in one of the most saccharine death scenes in literature, reminiscent of the death of Bambi's mother. Eva's father promises his daughter on her deathbed that he would grant Tom his liberty but this promise is ignored by Eva's mother after his death and Tom is resold to the theatrically evil dealer Legree.
If Uncle Tom's Cabin did not contain scenes of emotional power and lyrical writing it would have been long-since forgotten. Despite Tom's cringing servility and all the black characters being apparently trapped in some kind of evolutionary stasis, a moving sincerity flows throughout the book and the effect it had on the conscience of nineteenth century America cannot be overstated. However, the world has moved on (allegedly) and in the end, the cloying sentimentality and the disturbing notion that Congregationalist Christianity is the only means available for gaining the freedom and dignity of the gentle, saintly slaves and redeeming the souls of their corrupt masters become overwhelming.



Incredible. I commend you, Mrs Stowe., 18 Sep 2006
Uncle Tom's Cabin, is a fictional novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. A novel that eventually caused the outbreak of the great American civil war, and the novel that accomplished the Abolitionist in their mission of emancipation of captives, the slaves. A novel that made Stowe the most famous woman in literature, albeit the most controversial. Though it is a fictional novel, but Stowe insists that many parts of the novel are the excerpts from true accounts of slaves and fugitives. And that many similar parables were to be found in the slave states of America, at that time. Stowe, intially anticipated much less of the novel that it would just buy her a new dress, but, as the time unfolded, it escalated her to the heights of fame and controversy. At that time, it sold millions of the copies and made Stowe the most famous and wealthy writer of her era.

The novel is full of emotions and makes you get in their (slaves) shoes. I felt ecstatic when they were contented. I felt doleful when they are traumatised. A person so rigid like me, got his throat dry at some incidents. At the same time, makes you sympathetic towards them. The most distinguished hallmark of Stowe's work is her mesmerising depiction of characters, places and situations. Very artistic, indeed! The novel is so full of emotions, that if you stab the book, it will bleed. Bleed with the pathetic accounts of fugitives, slaves and utter and gross discrimination of the blacks at that time. Moreover, the novel also points out the religious inclination of Stowe, after going through characters of little Eva and the Christ like, Uncle Tom at his death bed. Though the religious exaggeration at few places reaches the frontier of fakery.

Let it as it may be, I will, without a doubt, recommend this to any one who really wants to read an emotional and touching novel. According to my presumption, the children under the age of 15 may not feel the granduer of novel, as adults.

A wonderfully hopeful and uplifting story, 28 Aug 2006
By the time I had got to page 47 I was hooked! I found the language a little slower to read than normal, having to get used to the speech of the slaves being written as it sounded, but I actually got to quite like that.
Harriet Beecher Stowe writes as if she's the narrator and I could almost see her at the side of the stage inviting us to see the next scene.

As we follow the lives of Uncle Tom, Eliza and George, the many people they encounter and whose lives they touch, and whose lives touched them, I cried and I smiled and I felt very humble. This is a very moving book yet oddly without being sentimental and that is to the author's credit. She writes well and makes every character very real and their situations both heartwrenching yet uplifting. A book that not only gives a valuble insight into life at the time in 'Kentuck' and what it was like to be 'sold down the river'....but one that gave me a hope and uplifting that I'd like to stay with me for some time to come.

An outstanding story, 28 Feb 2005
Uncle Tom's Cabin is a very melodramatic book. I have read it several times over the past twenty years and must say that it has something new for every decade or even for every generation. When considered for our time, Uncle Tom's stands out as a classic prose that hits directly at those turbulent times before the Civil War, and reflects issues of war and principles today. Harriet Beecher Stowe had a great cause to write about and wrote a work that still is as relevant today as it was during his time.

The author's masterful story summarizes the conflicting attitudes of a nation on the brink of civil war. Melodramatic though it is, it was written in the style of the times and for a situation that required it. This is a highly recommended book.

Also recommended: DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, WAR AND PEACE, THE USURPER AND OTHERS

An utterly moving book, 07 Apr 2001
This book has to be amongst the most powerful and emotional book on slavery that I have ever read. The other reviewers have said all there is to say, so all I can add to that is READ IT! I totally admire this author for speaking out and stirring up emotions as she has, it is a masterpiece - I rest my case.

An outstanding story, 10 Mar 2005
Uncle Tom's Cabin is a very melodramatic book. I have read it several times over the past twenty years and must say that it has something new for every decade or even for every generation. When considered for our time, Uncle Tom's stands out as a classic prose that hits directly at those turbulent times before the Civil War, and reflects issues of war and principles today. Harriet Beecher Stowe had a great cause to write about and wrote a work that still is as relevant today as it was during his time.

The author's masterful story summarizes the conflicting attitudes of a nation on the brink of civil war. Melodramatic though it is, it was written in the style of the times and for a situation that required it. This is a highly recommended book.

Also recommended: DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, WAR AND PEACE, THE USURPER AND OTHERS

Literature And History, 14 Jun 2008
There are some books which one gets to know by reputation before one actually reads them. "Uncle Tom's Cabin (or, Life Among the Lowly)" by Harriet Beecher Stowe is one of them. Whether from studying American History and slavery, and hearing the pejorative term "Uncle Tom", one gets a strong sense for certain aspects of the book. For whatever reason, I had not read the book until recently, when studying in more detail the history of slavery in the U.S. made this a necessity in my view.

The history of how this book came about is important to the overall experience as well. The 1850 Compromise had seemed to settle the slavery question, before Stephen A. Douglas used its existence as a justification for his argument that the Missouri Compromise had been overturned. However, part of the Compromise included a slave-catching bill which created outcries from the abolitionist movement, and led a thirty-nine year old Harriet Beecher Stowe to write what would become perhaps the most important publication in the history of the Untied States.

The change in public sentiment after its publication was dramatic. Its initial publication in the "National Era" as a 40 part serial, starting with the June 5, 1851 issue, did not draw a lot of notice outside of the abolitionist movement, but its publication as a complete book on March 20th of 1852 resulted in it being the most successful novel ever written up to that point. It was called by one critic at the time "The most valuable addition that America has made to English literature", and it has become a piece of history itself, as well as a classic piece of literature.

In the initial part of the story there are three key slave characters to this story: the title character, Uncle Tom, Eliza (there is also her young son Harry), and George Harris. George is Eliza's husband and Harry's father, and is owned by Mr. Harris, who abuses George, mainly due to his being jealous of George's talents. Eliza, Harry, and Tom are owned by Mr. and Mrs. Shelby. The Shelby's are good to their slaves, yet due to some financial mishaps, Arthur Shelby decides that he is forced to sell off Tom, and is then talked into selling Harry as well to fully clear his debt. This is the opening scene of the novel, and it sets the tone for the rest of the book.

Eliza learns of the sale of Harry and flees with her son in order to save him. She is also aware of her husband's intent to flee from his brutal master. George does also flee and both of them make their way into Ohio where they manage to unite. Tom, learns the reason for his sale, and decides that it is best for his master and the rest of the slaves owned by the Shelby's, and thus he obediently goes along with the sale. The fleeing slaves go north, while Tom is taken south.

The three characters are very distinct and important. Stowe uses Eliza to show the perspective of a female slave. Her family kept apart by slavery, and threatened to be parted from her son, she flees in fear and in do so gains freedom and her family reunited. George is equally important, as by defying an abusive owner, he too gains his freedom and his family by not following the law. In his words we hear the echo of Patrick Henry when he says "I'll be free, or I'll die!" Stowe uses these characters to show the fallacy of the common belief of the time that slaves don't have the same sense of family. She also defies common belief by portraying George as smart and talented and passionate about his thirst for freedom. Of course, the comparison between the dire conditions for George in slavery as well as the broken family situation verses that which they have once they flee is significant. Stowe leaves George, Eliza, and Harry for a long period in the middle of the book, but she does return to them in a chapter near the end to finish their story.

The other character, Uncle Tom, is the most controversial. His almost infuriating obedience and subservience to his masters in the story resulted in the creation of the derisive term "Uncle Tom". His character today reads as one who is not intelligent, and someone who blindly follows his master and his religion. In my opinion, it was important to have him as the central hero of the story and important that he act as the "ideal slave" would act. One key point is the contrast between what happens to an "ideal" slave who does what the master tells him to do, and the "bad" slaves who run away. Unlike Eliza and George, Tom loses his wife and children when his master sells him.

Another important aspect of Tom is that he is always, by far, more moral than those that supposedly "own" him. Even the relatively benign Arthur Shelby allows his personal needs to not only sell Tom, but in doing so breaking his promise to free him, and beyond that, he fails to make a real effort to regain Tom, which he also promises to do. This contrast serves its purpose well. Tom is not dumb, and his faith is pure and true, unlike the faith of the slave-owners which they have had to twist to convince themselves that slavery is a moral good.

Tom's second master is Augustine St. Clare, who inherited a plantation in Louisiana, and though he feels slavery is a sin, it is a sin he is unable to abstain from. His cousin, Miss Ophelia St. Clare, is from New England and argues with him to try to get him to give up his slaves. His response is to have her try to raise and educate a wild young slave girl called Topsy. Though separated from his family, Tom is still able to correspond through an exchange of letters, which gives both himself and his loved ones hope of being reunited. Tom's obedience again earns his master's trust, good treatment, and promise of freedom, but a tragedy results in Tom being sold again.

Tom's third master is the infamous Simon Legree, a brutal master who trusts no slave, and who finds Tom too soft. At this point, Tom's separation from his family is complete, there is no communication at all. It is here where Tom refuses to do as his new master acts, and the reader learns that Tom has never really been a slave, that his actions have always been carried out because he believed they were the best course of action. He will not let Legree turn him into a Slave Driver, and he will readily sacrifice himself for others, as he has done throughout.

Though the slang can be difficult to navigate, and there are certainly other weaknesses as well, such as a wrap-up which is a bit too neat and some ideas on Liberia which demonstrate the racism which was even there in those that were against slavery, this is a book which every American ought to read and experience. When initially published, the book did well not only in the Northern part of the United States, but in Europe as well. Stowe makes use of the current events of the time in her narrative. For example, in one of the narrative comments, Stowe makes a comparison to a runaway slave and a Hungarian defying the law and making his way to America, which is a clear reference to the Hungarian, Louis Kossuth, fleeing Austria and the hero's welcome he received when he came to the United States.

The edition I am reviewing is the Penguin Classics which includes an introduction titled "The Art of Controversy" by Ann Douglas. It provides some good insight into Harriet Beecher Stowe's life and her writing of this novel, but I did think she somewhat oversimplified some of the historical context. Nevertheless, I would definitely highly recommend the novel.


More than one might expect, 24 Feb 2003
Anecdotal history claims that Abraham Lincoln described Harriet Beecher Stowe (to her face) as 'the little lady' who started the Civil War. The phrase 'Uncle Tom' has now passed into the popular lexicon, and many more people know this book by reputation than have actually read it. It began as a serialized drama printed in US periodicals, and went on to become a best selling novel. It is the work of an ardent abolitionist, and Christian, and this shows. The novel is unashamedly didactic, and works principally by an appeal to the reader's emotions. And it works very well. Harriett Beecher Stowe lost one of her own children before writing this novel, and one cannot help but feel that this was what allowed her to write so emotively on the subject. The novel is long, but it flies by: HBS has a gift for narrative, character, and suspense.

The sentimental novel that acted as a catalyst for the American Civil War, 04 Dec 2007
Uncle Tom's Cabin is one of the most important and popular novels in literary history. One hundred and fifty years on it remains as controversial as it was at the time of its publication and has spawned the term Uncle Tom to describe black people who are excessively meek and submissive in the face of racial abuse and prejudice. The debate today though is not about the morality of slavery, which is universally reviled, but instead focuses on whether or not the author inadvertently demeans and degrades the very people for whom she sought both dignity and liberation.
The novel begins in relatively liberal Kentucky in the home of a `liberal' slave owner and his wife who are reluctantly forced to sell two of their slaves to an unscrupulous dealer due to severe financial difficulties. On hearing that her son is about to be sold, mulatto Eliza flees across a frozen river with her little boy and heads for free Canada with the aid of sympathetic Quakers, meeting up with her bitter, estranged husband along the way. In contrast, pious Tom accepts severance from his family and his fate at the slave auction with resigned docility and is fortunate at first to be reassigned to a family headed by another liberal-inclined slaver. It is here that we meet the golden-haired (of course) little angel Eva, daughter of Tom's new master and his unsympathetic wife. Eva has bottomless compassion for Tom and the other slaves and servants and is adored in turn until she dies in one of the most saccharine death scenes in literature, reminiscent of the death of Bambi's mother. Eva's father promises his daughter on her deathbed that he would grant Tom his liberty but this promise is ignored by Eva's mother after his death and Tom is resold to the theatrically evil dealer Legree.
If Uncle Tom's Cabin did not contain scenes of emotional power and lyrical writing it would have been long-since forgotten. Despite Tom's cringing servility and all the black characters being apparently trapped in some kind of evolutionary stasis, a moving sincerity flows throughout the book and the effect it had on the conscience of nineteenth century America cannot be overstated. However, the world has moved on (allegedly) and in the end, the cloying sentimentality and the disturbing notion that Congregationalist Christianity is the only means available for gaining the freedom and dignity of the gentle, saintly slaves and redeeming the souls of their corrupt masters become overwhelming.



Incredible. I commend you, Mrs Stowe., 18 Sep 2006
Uncle Tom's Cabin, is a fictional novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. A novel that eventually caused the outbreak of the great American civil war, and the novel that accomplished the Abolitionist in their mission of emancipation of captives, the slaves. A novel that made Stowe the most famous woman in literature, albeit the most controversial. Though it is a fictional novel, but Stowe insists that many parts of the novel are the excerpts from true accounts of slaves and fugitives. And that many similar parables were to be found in the slave states of America, at that time. Stowe, intially anticipated much less of the novel that it would just buy her a new dress, but, as the time unfolded, it escalated her to the heights of fame and controversy. At that time, it sold millions of the copies and made Stowe the most famous and wealthy writer of her era.

The novel is full of emotions and makes you get in their (slaves) shoes. I felt ecstatic when they were contented. I felt doleful when they are traumatised. A person so rigid like me, got his throat dry at some incidents. At the same time, makes you sympathetic towards them. The most distinguished hallmark of Stowe's work is her mesmerising depiction of characters, places and situations. Very artistic, indeed! The novel is so full of emotions, that if you stab the book, it will bleed. Bleed with the pathetic accounts of fugitives, slaves and utter and gross discrimination of the blacks at that time. Moreover, the novel also points out the religious inclination of Stowe, after going through characters of little Eva and the Christ like, Uncle Tom at his death bed. Though the religious exaggeration at few places reaches the frontier of fakery.

Let it as it may be, I will, without a doubt, recommend this to any one who really wants to read an emotional and touching novel. According to my presumption, the children under the age of 15 may not feel the granduer of novel, as adults.

A wonderfully hopeful and uplifting story, 28 Aug 2006
By the time I had got to page 47 I was hooked! I found the language a little slower to read than normal, having to get used to the speech of the slaves being written as it sounded, but I actually got to quite like that.
Harriet Beecher Stowe writes as if she's the narrator and I could almost see her at the side of the stage inviting us to see the next scene.

As we follow the lives of Uncle Tom, Eliza and George, the many people they encounter and whose lives they touch, and whose lives touched them, I cried and I smiled and I felt very humble. This is a very moving book yet oddly without being sentimental and that is to the author's credit. She writes well and makes every character very real and their situations both heartwrenching yet uplifting. A book that not only gives a valuble insight into life at the time in 'Kentuck' and what it was like to be 'sold down the river'....but one that gave me a hope and uplifting that I'd like to stay with me for some time to come.

An outstanding story, 28 Feb 2005
Uncle Tom's Cabin is a very melodramatic book. I have read it several times over the past twenty years and must say that it has something new for every decade or even for every generation. When considered for our time, Uncle Tom's stands out as a classic prose that hits directly at those turbulent times before the Civil War, and reflects issues of war and principles today. Harriet Beecher Stowe had a great cause to write about and wrote a work that still is as relevant today as it was during his time.

The author's masterful story summarizes the conflicting attitudes of a nation on the brink of civil war. Melodramatic though it is, it was written in the style of the times and for a situation that required it. This is a highly recommended book.

Also recommended: DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, WAR AND PEACE, THE USURPER AND OTHERS

An utterly moving book, 07 Apr 2001
This book has to be amongst the most powerful and emotional book on slavery that I have ever read. The other reviewers have said all there is to say, so all I can add to that is READ IT! I totally admire this author for speaking out and stirring up emotions as she has, it is a masterpiece - I rest my case.

The sentimental novel that acted as a catalyst for the American Civil War, 04 Dec 2007
Uncle Tom's Cabin is one of the most important and popular novels in literary history. One hundred and fifty years on it remains as controversial as it was at the time of its publication and has spawned the term Uncle Tom to describe black people who are excessively meek and submissive in the face of racial abuse and prejudice. The debate today though is not about the morality of slavery, which is universally reviled, but instead focuses on whether or not the author inadvertently demeans and degrades the very people for whom she sought both dignity and liberation.
The novel begins in relatively liberal Kentucky in the home of a `liberal' slave owner and his wife who are reluctantly forced to sell two of their slaves to an unscrupulous dealer due to severe financial difficulties. On hearing that her son is about to be sold, mulatto Eliza flees across a frozen river with her little boy and heads for free Canada with the aid of sympathetic Quakers, meeting up with her bitter, estranged husband along the way. In contrast, pious Tom accepts severance from his family and his fate at the slave auction with resigned docility and is fortunate at first to be reassigned to a family headed by another liberal-inclined slaver. It is here that we meet the golden-haired (of course) little angel Eva, daughter of Tom's new master and his unsympathetic wife. Eva has bottomless compassion for Tom and the other slaves and servants and is adored in turn until she dies in one of the most saccharine death scenes in literature, reminiscent of the death of Bambi's mother. Eva's father promises his daughter on her deathbed that he would grant Tom his liberty but this promise is ignored by Eva's mother after his death and Tom is resold to the theatrically evil dealer Legree.
If Uncle Tom's Cabin did not contain scenes of emotional power and lyrical writing it would have been long-since forgotten. Despite Tom's cringing servility and all the black characters being apparently trapped in some kind of evolutionary stasis, a moving sincerity flows throughout the book and the effect it had on the conscience of nineteenth century America cannot be overstated. However, the world has moved on (allegedly) and in the end, the cloying sentimentality and the disturbing notion that Congregationalist Christianity is the only means available for gaining the freedom and dignity of the gentle, saintly slaves and redeeming the souls of their corrupt masters become overwhelming.



Incredible. I commend you, Mrs Stowe., 18 Sep 2006
Uncle Tom's Cabin, is a fictional novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. A novel that eventually caused the outbreak of the great American civil war, and the novel that accomplished the Abolitionist in their mission of emancipation of captives, the slaves. A novel that made Stowe the most famous woman in literature, albeit the most controversial. Though it is a fictional novel, but Stowe insists that many parts of the novel are the excerpts from true accounts of slaves and fugitives. And that many similar parables were to be found in the slave states of America, at that time. Stowe, intially anticipated much less of the novel that it would just buy her a new dress, but, as the time unfolded, it escalated her to the heights of fame and controversy. At that time, it sold millions of the copies and made Stowe the most famous and wealthy writer of her era.

The novel is full of emotions and makes you get in their (slaves) shoes. I felt ecstatic when they were contented. I felt doleful when they are traumatised. A person so rigid like me, got his throat dry at some incidents. At the same time, makes you sympathetic towards them. The most distinguished hallmark of Stowe's work is her mesmerising depiction of characters, places and situations. Very artistic, indeed! The novel is so full of emotions, that if you stab the book, it will bleed. Bleed with the pathetic accounts of fugitives, slaves and utter and gross discrimination of the blacks at that time. Moreover, the novel also points out the religious inclination of Stowe, after going through characters of little Eva and the Christ like, Uncle Tom at his death bed. Though the religious exaggeration at few places reaches the frontier of fakery.

Let it as it may be, I will, without a doubt, recommend this to any one who really wants to read an emotional and touching novel. According to my presumption, the children under the age of 15 may not feel the granduer of novel, as adults.

A wonderfully hopeful and uplifting story, 28 Aug 2006
By the time I had got to page 47 I was hooked! I found the language a little slower to read than normal, having to get used to the speech of the slaves being written as it sounded, but I actually got to quite like that.
Harriet Beecher Stowe writes as if she's the narrator and I could almost see her at the side of the stage inviting us to see the next scene.

As we follow the lives of Uncle Tom, Eliza and George, the many people they encounter and whose lives they touch, and whose lives touched them, I cried and I smiled and I felt very humble. This is a very moving book yet oddly without being sentimental and that is to the author's credit. She writes well and makes every character very real and their situations both heartwrenching yet uplifting. A book that not only gives a valuble insight into life at the time in 'Kentuck' and what it was like to be 'sold down the river'....but one that gave me a hope and uplifting that I'd like to stay with me for some time to come.

An outstanding story, 28 Feb 2005
Uncle Tom's Cabin is a very melodramatic book. I have read it several times over the past twenty years and must say that it has something new for every decade or even for every generation. When considered for our time, Uncle Tom's stands out as a classic prose that hits directly at those turbulent times before the Civil War, and reflects issues of war and principles today. Harriet Beecher Stowe had a great cause to write about and wrote a work that still is as relevant today as it was during his time.

The author's masterful story summarizes the conflicting attitudes of a nation on the brink of civil war. Melodramatic though it is, it was written in the style of the times and for a situation that required it. This is a highly recommended book.

Also recommended: DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, WAR AND PEACE, THE USURPER AND OTHERS

An utterly moving book, 07 Apr 2001
This book has to be amongst the most powerful and emotional book on slavery that I have ever read. The other reviewers have said all there is to say, so all I can add to that is READ IT! I totally admire this author for speaking out and stirring up emotions as she has, it is a masterpiece - I rest my case.

An outstanding story, 10 Mar 2005
Uncle Tom's Cabin is a very melodramatic book. I have read it several times over the past twenty years and must say that it has something new for every decade or even for every generation. When considered for our time, Uncle Tom's stands out as a classic prose that hits directly at those turbulent times before the Civil War, and reflects issues of war and principles today. Harriet Beecher Stowe had a great cause to write about and wrote a work that still is as relevant today as it was during his time.

The author's masterful story summarizes the conflicting attitudes of a nation on the brink of civil war. Melodramatic though it is, it was written in the style of the times and for a situation that required it. This is a highly recommended book.

Also recommended: DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, WAR AND PEACE, THE USURPER AND OTHERS

Literature And History, 14 Jun 2008
There are some books which one gets to know by reputation before one actually reads them. "Uncle Tom's Cabin (or, Life Among the Lowly)" by Harriet Beecher Stowe is one of them. Whether from studying American History and slavery, and hearing the pejorative term "Uncle Tom", one gets a strong sense for certain aspects of the book. For whatever reason, I had not read the book until recently, when studying in more detail the history of slavery in the U.S. made this a necessity in my view.

The history of how this book came about is important to the overall experience as well. The 1850 Compromise had seemed to settle the slavery question, before Stephen A. Douglas used its existence as a justification for his argument that the Missouri Compromise had been overturned. However, part of the Compromise included a slave-catching bill which created outcries from the abolitionist movement, and led a thirty-nine year old Harriet Beecher Stowe to write what would become perhaps the most important publication in the history of the Untied States.

The change in public sentiment after its publication was dramatic. Its initial publication in the "National Era" as a 40 part serial, starting with the June 5, 1851 issue, did not draw a lot of notice outside of the abolitionist movement, but its publication as a complete book on March 20th of 1852 resulted in it being the most successful novel ever written up to that point. It was called by one critic at the time "The most valuable addition that America has made to English literature", and it has become a piece of history itself, as well as a classic piece of literature.

In the initial part of the story there are three key slave characters to this story: the title character, Uncle Tom, Eliza (there is also her young son Harry), and George Harris. George is Eliza's husband and Harry's father, and is owned by Mr. Harris, who abuses George, mainly due to his being jealous of George's talents. Eliza, Harry, and Tom are owned by Mr. and Mrs. Shelby. The Shelby's are good to their slaves, yet due to some financial mishaps, Arthur Shelby decides that he is forced to sell off Tom, and is then talked into selling Harry as well to fully clear his debt. This is the opening scene of the novel, and it sets the tone for the rest of the book.

Eliza learns of the sale of Harry and flees with her son in order to save him. She is also aware of her husband's intent to flee from his brutal master. George does also flee and both of them make their way into Ohio where they manage to unite. Tom, learns the reason for his sale, and decides that it is best for his master and the rest of the slaves owned by the Shelby's, and thus he obediently goes along with the sale. The fleeing slaves go north, while Tom is taken south.

The three characters are very distinct and important. Stowe uses Eliza to show the perspective of a female slave. Her family kept apart by slavery, and threatened to be parted from her son, she flees in fear and in do so gains freedom and her family reunited. George is equally important, as by defying an abusive owner, he too gains his freedom and his family by not following the law. In his words we hear the echo of Patrick Henry when he says "I'll be free, or I'll die!" Stowe uses these characters to show the fallacy of the common belief of the time that slaves don't have the same sense of family. She also defies common belief by portraying George as smart and talented and passionate about his thirst for freedom. Of course, the comparison between the dire conditions for George in slavery as well as the broken family situation verses that which they have once they flee is significant. Stowe leaves George, Eliza, and Harry for a long period in the middle of the book, but she does return to them in a chapter near the end to finish their story.

The other character, Uncle Tom, is the most controversial. His almost infuriating obedience and subservience to his masters in the story resulted in the creation of the derisive term "Uncle Tom". His character today reads as one who is not intelligent, and someone who blindly follows his master and his religion. In my opinion, it was important to have him as the central hero of the story and important that he act as the "ideal slave" would act. One key point is the contrast between what happens to an "ideal" slave who does what the master tells him to do, and the "bad" slaves who run away. Unlike Eliza and George, Tom loses his wife and children when his master sells him.

Another important aspect of Tom is that he is always, by far, more moral than those that supposedly "own" him. Even the relatively benign Arthur Shelby allows his personal needs to not only sell Tom, but in doing so breaking his promise to free him, and beyond that, he fails to make a real effort to regain Tom, which he also promises to do. This contrast serves its purpose well. Tom is not dumb, and his faith is pure and true, unlike the faith of the slave-owners which they have had to twist to convince themselves that slavery is a moral good.

Tom's second master is Augustine St. Clare, who inherited a plantation in Louisiana, and though he feels slavery is a sin, it is a sin he is unable to abstain from. His cousin, Miss Ophelia St. Clare, is from New England and argues with him to try to get him to give up his slaves. His response is to have her try to raise and educate a wild young slave girl called Topsy. Though separated from his family, Tom is still able to correspond through an exchange of letters, which gives both himself and his loved ones hope of being reunited. Tom's obedience again earns his master's trust, good treatment, and promise of freedom, but a tragedy results in Tom being sold again.

Tom's third master is the infamous Simon Legree, a brutal master who trusts no slave, and who finds Tom too soft. At this point, Tom's separation from his family is complete, there is no communication at all. It is here where Tom refuses to do as his new master acts, and the reader learns that Tom has never really been a slave, that his actions have always been carried out because he believed they were the best course of action. He will not let Legree turn him into a Slave Driver, and he will readily sacrifice himself for others, as he has done throughout.

Though the slang can be difficult to navigate, and there are certainly other weaknesses as well, such as a wrap-up which is a bit too neat and some ideas on Liberia which demonstrate the racism which was even there in those that were against slavery, this is a book which every American ought to read and experience. When initially published, the book did well not only in the Northern part of the United States, but in Europe as well. Stowe makes use of the current events of the time in her narrative. For example, in one of the narrative comments, Stowe makes a comparison to a runaway slave and a Hungarian defying the law and making his way to America, which is a clear reference to the Hungarian, Louis Kossuth, fleeing Austria and the hero's welcome he received when he came to the United States.

The edition I am reviewing is the Penguin Classics which includes an introduction titled "The Art of Controversy" by Ann Douglas. It provides some good insight into Harriet Beecher Stowe's life and her writing of this novel, but I did think she somewhat oversimplified some of the historical context. Nevertheless, I would definitely highly recommend the novel.


More than one might expect, 24 Feb 2003
Anecdotal history claims that Abraham Lincoln described Harriet Beecher Stowe (to her face) as 'the little lady' who started the Civil War. The phrase 'Uncle Tom' has now passed into the popular lexicon, and many more people know this book by reputation than have actually read it. It began as a serialized drama printed in US periodicals, and went on to become a best selling novel. It is the work of an ardent abolitionist, and Christian, and this shows. The novel is unashamedly didactic, and works principally by an appeal to the reader's emotions. And it works very well. Harriett Beecher Stowe lost one of her own children before writing this novel, and one cannot help but feel that this was what allowed her to write so emotively on the subject. The novel is long, but it flies by: HBS has a gift for narrative, character, and suspense.

The sentimental novel that acted as a catalyst for the American Civil War, 04 Dec 2007
Uncle Tom's Cabin is one of the most important and popular novels in literary history. One hundred and fifty years on it remains as controversial as it was at the time of its publication and has spawned the term Uncle Tom to describe black people who are excessively meek and submissive in the face of racial abuse and prejudice. The debate today though is not about the morality of slavery, which is universally reviled, but instead focuses on whether or not the author inadvertently demeans and degrades the very people for whom she sought both dignity and liberation.
The novel begins in relatively liberal Kentucky in the home of a `liberal' slave owner and his wife who are reluctantly forced to sell two of their slaves to an unscrupulous dealer due to severe financial difficulties. On hearing that her son is about to be sold, mulatto Eliza flees across a frozen river with her little boy and heads for free Canada with the aid of sympathetic Quakers, meeting up with her bitter, estranged husband along the way. In contrast, pious Tom accepts severance from his family and his fate at the slave auction with resigned docility and is fortunate at first to be reassigned to a family headed by another liberal-inclined slaver. It is here that we meet the golden-haired (of course) little angel Eva, daughter of Tom's new master and his unsympathetic wife. Eva has bottomless compassion for Tom and the other slaves and servants and is adored in turn until she dies in one of the most saccharine death scenes in literature, reminiscent of the death of Bambi's mother. Eva's father promises his daughter on her deathbed that he would grant Tom his liberty but this promise is ignored by Eva's mother after his death and Tom is resold to the theatrically evil dealer Legree.
If Uncle Tom's Cabin did not contain scenes of emotional power and lyrical writing it would have been long-since forgotten. Despite Tom's cringing servility and all the black characters being apparently trapped in some kind of evolutionary stasis, a moving sincerity flows throughout the book and the effect it had on the conscience of nineteenth century America cannot be overstated. However, the world has moved on (allegedly) and in the end, the cloying sentimentality and the disturbing notion that Congregationalist Christianity is the only means available for gaining the freedom and dignity of the gentle, saintly slaves and redeeming the souls of their corrupt masters become overwhelming.



Incredible. I commend you, Mrs Stowe., 18 Sep 2006
Uncle Tom's Cabin, is a fictional novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. A novel that eventually caused the outbreak of the great American civil war, and the novel that accomplished the Abolitionist in their mission of emancipation of captives, the slaves. A novel that made Stowe the most famous woman in literature, albeit the most controversial. Though it is a fictional novel, but Stowe insists that many parts of the novel are the excerpts from true accounts of slaves and fugitives. And that many similar parables were to be found in the slave states of America, at that time. Stowe, intially anticipated much less of the novel that it would just buy her a new dress, but, as the time unfolded, it escalated her to the heights of fame and controversy. At that time, it sold millions of the copies and made Stowe the most famous and wealthy writer of her era.

The novel is full of emotions and makes you get in their (slaves) shoes. I felt ecstatic when they were contented. I felt doleful when they are traumatised. A person so rigid like me, got his throat dry at some incidents. At the same time, makes you sympathetic towards them. The most distinguished hallmark of Stowe's work is her mesmerising depiction of characters, places and situations. Very artistic, indeed! The novel is so full of emotions, that if you stab the book, it will bleed. Bleed with the pathetic accounts of fugitives, slaves and utter and gross discrimination of the blacks at that time. Moreover, the novel also points out the religious inclination of Stowe, after going through characters of little Eva and the Christ like, Uncle Tom at his death bed. Though the religious exaggeration at few places reaches the frontier of fakery.

Let it as it may be, I will, without a doubt, recommend this to any one who really wants to read an emotional and touching novel. According to my presumption, the children under the age of 15 may not feel the granduer of novel, as adults.

A wonderfully hopeful and uplifting story, 28 Aug 2006
By the time I had got to page 47 I was hooked! I found the language a little slower to read than normal, having to get used to the speech of the slaves being written as it sounded, but I actually got to quite like that.
Harriet Beecher Stowe writes as if she's the narrator and I could almost see her at the side of the stage inviting us to see the next scene.

As we follow the lives of Uncle Tom, Eliza and George, the many people they encounter and whose lives they touch, and whose lives touched them, I cried and I smiled and I felt very humble. This is a very moving book yet oddly without being sentimental and that is to the author's credit. She writes well and makes every character very real and their situations both heartwrenching yet uplifting. A book that not only gives a valuble insight into life at the time in 'Kentuck' and what it was like to be 'sold down the river'....but one that gave me a hope and uplifting that I'd like to stay with me for some time to come.

An outstanding story, 28 Feb 2005
Uncle Tom's Cabin is a very melodramatic book. I have read it several times over the past twenty years and must say that it has something new for every decade or even for every generation. When considered for our time, Uncle Tom's stands out as a classic prose that hits directly at those turbulent times before the Civil War, and reflects issues of war and principles today. Harriet Beecher Stowe had a great cause to write about and wrote a work that still is as relevant today as it was during his time.

The author's masterful story summarizes the conflicting attitudes of a nation on the brink of civil war. Melodramatic though it is, it was written in the style of the times and for a situation that required it. This is a highly recommended book.

Also recommended: DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, WAR AND PEACE, THE USURPER AND OTHERS

An utterly moving book, 07 Apr 2001
This book has to be amongst the most powerful and emotional book on slavery that I have ever read. The other reviewers have said all there is to say, so all I can add to that is READ IT! I totally admire this author for speaking out and stirring up emotions as she has, it is a masterpiece - I rest my case.

It was descriptive., 26 Jan 2000
It was a very good book and I have learned alot about it. It made me have different ideas about slavery.