Ca. 1910 Leather UNCLE TOM ' S CABIN Stowe Negro Slaves African American Slavery
Item History & Price
Uncle Tom's Cabin
( Or, Life Among The Lowly )
By
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Everyman's Library Edition
Published by J. M. Dent & Co.
London
Printed in Great Britain
circa 1910
Undated; this is a circa 1910 printing.
Hardcover.
Quarter Leather Binding.
Leather Spine, Cloth over boards.
4.25" x 6.75"
(16) + 442 Pages.
Over 100 Years Old
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896).
Includes I...ntroductory Remarks by James Sherman
The book which President Abraham Lincoln himself said started the American Civil War ; a novel which examines the lives and living conditions of black African slaves in the American South in the time prior to the Civil War .
Widely read when it first appeared in 1852, " Uncle Tom's Cabin " was dismissed by some as abolitionist propaganda; yet Tolstoy deemed it a great work of literature "flowing from love of God and man."
Today however, Harriet Beecher Stowe's stirring indictment of slavery is often confused with garish dramatizations that flourished for decades after the Civil War - productions that relied heavily on melodramatic simplifications of character totally alien to the original.
Thus "Uncle Tom" has become a pejorative term for a subservient black, whereas Uncle Tom in the book is a man who, under the most inhumane of circumstances, never loses his human dignity.
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" is the most powerful and most enduring work of art ever written about American slavery, " said Alfred Kazin.
This book created such a controversy that when Harriet Beecher Stowe was introduced to President Abraham Lincoln in 1862, he is said to have greeted her with the words: "So you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!"
The Story:
Eliza Harris, a slave whose child is to be sold, escapes her beloved home on the Shelby plantation in Kentucky and heads North, eludes the hired slave catchers and is aided by the underground railroad. Another slave, Uncle Tom, is sent "down the river" for sale and ultimately endures a martyr's death under the whips of Simon Legree's overseers.
A classic must-read of American Literature.
Condition
Just slight wear to the covers themselves.
The leather has a little loss at the head & foot of the spine.
The covers remain well attached.
[ see the photos ]
The hinges are tight.
Former owner's private bookplate on front endpaper.
(" Book Of Mine ; William W. Evans ")
No other markings.
No writing.
The last page of the Bibliography is clipped at the lower half ( no loss of text ).
The pages are clean and otherwise in very good condition.
The spine recently treated with Bookbinder's Leather Preservative-Restorer
to replenish essential oils and help preserve the antique leather.
Carefully Packed for Shipment to the Buyer.
Have A Look At My Many Other Books.
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Biographical Information:
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)
Harriet Beecher Stowe was born on June 14, 1811 at Litchfield, Connecticut. The first twelve years of her life were spent in the intellectual atmosphere of Litchfield, which was a famous resort of ministers, judges, lawyers and professional men of superior attainments.
When about twelve, she went to Hartford, where her sister Catherine had opened a school. While there she was known as an absent-minded and moody young lady, odd in her manner and habits, but a fine scholar, excelling especially in the writing of compositions. In 1832, her father assumed the presidency of Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio, she followed her family. On the fifth of January, 1836, she married Professor Calvin E. Stowe, a man of learning and distinction. In Cincinnati, she came into contact with fugitive slaves .
Stowe was catapulted to international fame with the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1851. Following publication of the book, she became a celebrity, speaking against slavery both in America and Europe. She wrote A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853) extensively documenting the realities on which the book was based, to refute critics who tried to argue that it was inauthentic; and in 1856 published a second anti-slavery novel, " Dred - A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp ", and again traveled to Europe to promote the book.
In 1859 Stowe took her third successful European tour, and published a novel, The Minister's Wooing. In 1862, The Pearl of Orr's Island was published and the following year the Stowe family moved to Hartford, Connecticut.
The following excerpt is taken from the last chapter of Uncle Tom's Cabin, which very much resembles a sermon. She urges white Northerners to welcome escaped slaves and treat them with respect:
"On the shores of our free states are emerging the poor, shattered, broken remnants of families, - men and women, escaped, by miraculous providences, from the surges of slavery, - feeble in knowledge, and, in many cases, infirm in moral constitution, from a system which confounds and confuses every principle of Christianity and morality. They come to seek a refuge among you; they come to seek education, knowledge, Christianity. What do you owe to these poor, unfortunates, O Christians? Does not every American Christian owe to the African race some effort at reparation for the wrongs that the American nation has brought upon them? Shall the doors of churches and school-houses be shut down upon them? Shall states arise and shake them out? Shall the Church of Christ hear in silence the taunt that is thrown at them, and shrink away from the helpless hand that they stretch out, and shrink away from the courage the cruelty that would chase them from our borders? If it must be so, it will be a mournful spectacle. If it must be so, the country will have reason to tremble, when it remembers that fate of nations is in the hand of the One who is very pitiful, and of tender compassion."
Thereafter, Stowe became one of America's best-paid and most famous writers. Born into a distinguished New England family, Stowe began her career writing stories for a Cincinnati literary club. Stowe was fortunate to have begun her career before writing had become sufficiently remunerative in the United States to allow men to dominate the profession.
First published in weekly installments from June 5, 1851 to April 1, 1852 in the journal National Era, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" created such a controversy that when she was introduced to President Abraham Lincoln in 1862, he is said to have greeted her with the words: "So you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!"
In 1869, the novel "Oldtown Folks" was published. Harriet also published a book with her sister Catherine, "The American Woman's Home", the same year.
In 1872, "Oldtown Fireside Stories" was published, followed by her last novel in 1878, " Poganuc People". In 1886, Calvin Stowe died.
Harriet outlived her husband by ten years, dying in 1896 at her home in Hartford at the age of eighty-five.
