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Harriet Beecher Stowe

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Uncle Tom's Cabin: Or, Life Among the Lowly Paperback – 17 September 1981

by Harriet Stowe (Author)

14,555 ratings

Edition: 1^st

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Published in 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel was a powerful indictment of slavery in America. Describing the many trials and eventual escape to freedom of the long-suffering, good-hearted slave Uncle Tom, it aimed to show how Christian love can overcome any human cruelty. Uncle Tom's Cabin has remained controversial to this day, seen as either a vital milestone in the anti-slavery cause or as a patronising stereotype of African-Americans, yet it played a crucial role in the eventual abolition of slavery and remains one of the most important American novels ever written.

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Penguin Canada is the proud publisher of great writers, gifted storytellers, beloved books and eminent works that cross borders and boundaries. There’s a book on our shelves for every reader, and we relish the opportunity to publish across every category and interest with the utmost care and enthusiasm. Penguin Canada’s imprints and publishing programs include Viking, Hamish Hamilton, Allen Lane, Penguin, and Penguin Lifestyle.

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"Uncle Tom's Cabin is the most powerful and enduring work of art ever written about American slavery."
--Alfred Kazin

About the Author

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, daughter of the Reverend Lyman Beecher of the local Congregational Church. In 1832, the family moved to Cincinnati, where Harriet married Calvin Ellis Stowe, a professor at the seminary, in 1836. The border town of Cincinnati was alive with abolitionist conflict and there Mrs. Stowe took an active part in community life. She came into contact with fugitive slaves, and learned from friends and from personal visits what life was like for the Negro in the South. In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Law was passed, and that same year Harriet's sister-in-law urged the author to put her feelings about the evils of slavery into words. Uncle Tom's Cabin was first published serially during 1851-52 in The National Era, and in book form in 1852. In one year more than 300,000 copies of the novel were sold. Mrs. Stowe continued to write, publishing eleven other novels and numerous articles before her death at the age of eighty-five in Hartford, Connecticut.

Ann Douglas teaches English at Columbia University. Her books include Terrible Honesty- Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s and The Feminization of American Culture.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin; 1st edition (17 September 1981)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 640 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0140390030
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0140390032
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.95 x 2.54 x 19.56 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 751,874 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 174 in Black & African American Historical Fiction (Books)
- 1,574 in Cultural Heritage Fiction
- 1,773 in Political Fiction (Books)

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Everyone should read this book!
Reviewed in Australia on 12 April 2014
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Upfront I will say that this version is a exceptionally well-produced ebook and I can't say that about many. If you would like an ebook of this classic I highly recommend this one.

Onto the book itself. Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe was first published in 1852. I loved this book! We know looking back from the 21st century how authentic her story is but at the time of publication Stowe was telling it like it was and adding fuel to the highly charged slavery issue. With this book we see slavery written in the time of slavery, not in retrospect. Presented with every attitude and perspective of the era through characters are so memorable and a setting so vivid, the reader is taken into that reality and immersed. And while the reader is confronted with terrible cruelty and heartache, it is never unreadable. It is CLEVER. Harriet Beecher Stowe knows exactly what she's doing. She knows she's sucking her reader into an amazing unputdownable adventure while she is totally exposing the unspeakableness that is slavery in antebellum America. It is breathtaking. Everyone should read this book.

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Great read
Reviewed in Australia on 27 December 2015
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I feel this book can share a message ,in today's world ,to the many about kindness to the worlds refugees.

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Neville
For a book that was written a century and a ...
Reviewed in Australia on 4 February 2016
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For a book that was written a century and a half ago, it still has reference in the 21st century, amid times when religion is still used to justify oppression and injustice, not just in relation to slavery, but as a threat to the freedom of people all over the world to live in peace and harmony. A must read for all.

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Rahul
An impartial review from a non-white, non-black
Reviewed in Australia on 24 August 2014
It is said that some stories are meant to be told in their day. Stories that transcend the commonplace customs of the day and shake things up. Stories that change the indifferent stupor of people who turn a blind eye into a genuine concern for others. Uncle Tom's Cabin is exactly that book. A tale of the oppressors and the oppressed. A tale of good people who treated their slaves well, a tale of cruel people who beat their slaves, and a tale of everybody who was indifferent to their plight and who rationalized, 'Everyone buys and sells slaves'. A tale that sparked off a revolution.

Mrs Stowe evokes a deep pathos in the reader for the protagonist Tom and his fellow slaves. Tom's master sells him to pay off his debts. He gets another kind master and finally a brutal one. The horrors of the day are dramatically included in the story. A mother pleading to a new owner to buy her daughter so that they could be together. People ignoring the wails of their separation mentioning that 'Niggers dont feel much as we do.' Daughters that are traded off to despotic owners so that they can fulfill their private passions. A mother killing her newborn son so that he doesn't have to live a life suffering tyranny & brutality.

And through all this our good natured, simple and pious Tom clutches the Bible and repeats the word of the Lord to one and all. He undergoes through all the trials and tribulations with never a bad word to anyone. Whether its good times or bad, the words of the Lord are always on his lips. No suffering is too much for him for he always believes that his deliverance is on hand.

History repeats itself and its no coincidence that oppressions and injustice happen time and again. This book has a striking resemblance to the horrors of the Holocaust as described in 'Man's Search for Meaning' by Viktor Frankl. More significant is the fact that Tom once says,'You can take my body, but not my soul' which is one of the cornerstone learnings of the latter book. You can take away a man's possessions, his family, his freedom and subject him to the most inhuman cruelties, but you cannot take away what he thinks and how he responds in any situation. The mind is always free. It cannot be shackled down.

Final thoughts: Harriet Beecher Stowe should be commended for writing such a bold book in her times. Salute to this brave lady who must have faced numerous obstacles while trying to research, write and complete this book and made it available for everyone to read, and more importantly dwell upon.

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Robert Geagea
Five Stars
Reviewed in Australia on 29 December 2015
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Marvellous!!

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Uncle Tom's Cabin
Reviewed in Australia on 10 November 2015
I had seen the film but never read the book. The language is powerful and the positioning of the reader in relation to characters is extremely clever. I personally have thought through many of these issues presented and find this an extremely moving account - a very challenging read. My niece is doing a large assignment on these issues in her final high school year and I will be recommending it to her as a source.

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Michael Hosking
Size and Style Matter
Reviewed in Australia on 9 July 2020
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I purchased the classic "Uncle Tom's Cabin", as I had heard it mentioned so much in my early years, but never read it. The binding and production style is great, even with gold leaf edging, but the book is only 16 cm X 10 cm, and looks full or normal size in the Amazon page.
It is a good read, but hard at times with the old black Southern style of butchered English.
The story is slow at times, with lots of unnecessary detail, in my opinion.

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Michael Hosking

Size and Style Matter

Reviewed in Australia on 9 July 2020
I purchased the classic "Uncle Tom's Cabin", as I had heard it mentioned so much in my early years, but never read it. The binding and production style is great, even with gold leaf edging, but the book is only 16 cm X 10 cm, and looks full or normal size in the Amazon page.
It is a good read, but hard at times with the old black Southern style of butchered English.
The story is slow at times, with lots of unnecessary detail, in my opinion.

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Gayle Wilson
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Reviewed in Australia on 18 October 2015
Sad yet hopeful story about slavery and its issues in pre civil war USA. Inspiring compassion and faith shown by the writer through the characters and story.

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TINY
A LONG STORY BUT VERY INTERESTING
Reviewed in Canada on 18 March 2013
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I AM A CANADIAN LIVING IN CANADA, I FIRST BECAME AWARE OF AFRICAN SLAVERY WHEN MY WIFE AND I WATCHED ROOTS ON TELEVISION SOME YEARS AGO AND THEN WATCHED IT AGAIN A MONTH AGO.
I THEN NOTICED THAT AMAZON HAD "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN " AVAILABLE FOR MY KINDLE-NO CHARGE-
AFTER READING THE WHOLE STORY ON KINDLE, I BORROWED A VIDEO FROM OUR LOCAL LIBRARY ON THIS OLD MOVIE."UNCLE TOM'S CABIN". MY WIFE AND I WATCHED THIS AMAZING PORTRAYAL OF THE LIFE OF UNCLE TOM AND HIS FAMILY AND MASTERS. THE KINDLE STORY AND THE MOVIE ARE ALMOST IDENTICAL, HOWEVER THE BEATINGS AND LASHINGS THESE POOR AFRICAN PEOPLE RECEIVED FROM SOME OF THEIR MASTERS WAS GRUESOME. MY WIFE AND I HAD TO TURN AWAY AT TIMES. HOWEVER AS IT TURNS OUT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HAVE ACCEPTED THE BLACK RACE INTO THEIR OWN CULTURE, EVEN NOW VOTING IN A BLACK PRESIDENT FOR THE SECOND TERM. I AM VERY PROUD TO HAVE MY AMERICAN COUSINS LIVING CLOSE, JUST ACROSS FROM OUR COMBINED BORDER. THANK YOU TO OUR U.S. NEIGHBORS.

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antonio smorto
perfect
Reviewed in Italy on 27 June 2019
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perfect!!!

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"Dr. Z" Richard Zeile
Should be Required Reading
Reviewed in the United States on 4 May 2024
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This story of 19th Century slave culture is foreign to our present consciousness; that is why we should require its reading for high school students. It presents the domestic world of the 19th Century, social attitudes, beliefs and socially accepted illusions, political developments, and their effects on people of differing social classes in a vivid and memorable way. How does a society tolerate such an evil as slavery? This novel helps us understand that people of many societies accommodate evil to some extent or another, and confronts us with the issue of our willingness to pay the price to do what is right. This may be the reason why those who believe in “progress” are reluctant to read this ground-breaking novel, for it pierces the self-satisfaction of those who simply do what is socially accepted, and point out that human virtue and goodness are rather rare in every society.

For example, the New England woman who comes South to assist her cousin St. Claire care for his daughter Eva, because the mother is a self-persuaded invalid, is morally shocked by slavery, but also finds the Blacks repulsive. She must confront her own prejudice against the slave she is given to teach, and she must develop a caring relationship, a genuine love, before her teaching can overcome the slave-girl’s dysfunctional approach to life (arising from early neglect). In this, the child Eva, who has a genuine affection for the slave members of the household who have cared for her, leads the way, dying before adolescence leads her to that conforming to society which teaches us implicitly what evils to shun and which to tolerate and just accept without acknowledgment.

There is ample fodder in this story for the argument that society makes otherwise good people do evil things, in other words that structure molds our morals. It begins with a “good” Kentucky family which treats their slaves well. These latter include Uncle Tom who functions as a steward of the estate, even carrying sums of money unsupervised for his owner to other states, and returning. Also included is Eliza, married to a slave from another farm, and their son Jim Crowe. Eliza is a mulatto (half-Black/half white), with features appealing to white men, but she is safe in the family that owns her. However, the owner has taken financial chances and his debts have been bought up by a slave trader who threatens to foreclose, forcing the owner to sell his three most valuable slaves, Eliza, Tom, and Eliza’s amusing son. Finding it easier to act first and reconcile later, he makes the sale, but before the Eliza and son can be seized by the dealer, Eliza flees, and when she reaches the Ohio River, has to leap from ice floe to ice floe to escape into free territory. There by chance she meets up with her husband who has escaped from his resentful master at a Quaker settlement and they eventually make it to Ontario. By the end of their story, he has obtained an education in France, secured freedom in American law, but determines his identity to be with the African ancestors rather than his white ancestors and decides to settle in Liberia.

Tom, on the other hand, accepts his sale and separation from his wife and children as a trial and his treatment by the dealer is detailed, a mix of unnecessary humiliation, and relaxation of this for good behavior. On the river boat down to New Orleans, a wealthy man’s daughter, the Eva we spoke of earlier, takes a fancy to him, in part because of his gentleness and in part because of his skill in entertaining children with makeshift toys, etc. She persuades her father, St. Claire, to purchase him, and Tom finds himself part of this easy-going family. St. Claire inherited slaves with his brother, but while the brother had the firmness (and necessary cruelty) to keep his in order, St. Claire shrinks from becoming brutilized. His brother took after their father who was a worldly man, but he was more like his mother, a fervent Catholic who regarded the slaves, if not as equals, then at least as people worthy of respect and consideration. Having adopted a fashionable skeptic air, St. Claire struggles between these two poles of his life, and admires the dignity, faith, and integrity of Tom who becomes his spiritual mentor. St. Claire determines to give Tom his freedom, and even discusses it with his New England cousin who urges him not to delay. He insist that he has all the time in the world, and the next night goes to the tavern. In attempting to break up a fight he gets stabbed in the gut with a Bowie knife, dying the next day. Tom is again sold as the estate is liquidated and the hypochondriac widow returns to her father’s plantation.

Tom’s interim with other slaves is described as they await the day of their auction. They are well fed for healthy, cheerful slaves fetch the highest prices. The humiliation of prospective buyers who grope the slaves to feel their muscles (especially of the women) and the examination of teeth, as is done with horse-selling, is described with a restraint that allows the reader to react to the thing described rather than to the Author’s rhetoric. Tom, it turns out, is purchased by greedy ruffian, Simon Legree, a man determined to become rich by working his slaves as hard as he can, without paying heed to what others might think right or humane. Instead of a wife he takes a slave or two as mistress; similarly, the two slaves he can train to be his foremen he makes subordinate companions in drinking and amusement, if they can brutalize the others and so keep them working. Tom gets into trouble with these for assisting the slaves who fall behind in their work. He is warned by a slave woman who seems to be immune to the foremen’s threats, not to help others, just accept the way things are. Because he is cooperative and learns quickly, Legree thinks initially of making Tom a foreman; but when Tom refuses to degrade a woman by stripping her and administering a beating, Legree has Tom receive the beating, and treats him with the resentment he feels arising from the moral judgment implicit in Tom’s refusal to do what is beneath him.

Tom’s former owners in Kentucky, the wife and the son of the man who had sold him had promised to buy Tom’s freedom when they had the means, and when the husband/father passed away, their notion of honor was less tied up in preserving the family plantation and more in keeping their promise. Thus the son, now after eight years, a man of 20, comes to New Orleans to track down Tom, and finally comes to Simon Legree’s Arkansas plantation. Alas, Tom has just died in a selfless act, and Legree treats the dead slave with no more dignity that of a horse’s carcass, and allows the young man to have the body, which he buries decently before returning to Kentucky. The family agrees to free all their slaves but employ them on the farm if they chose. At this announcement, Tom’s example of faith, courage, and goodness to others is to be remembered every time they pass by Uncle Tom’s cabin.”

The story has several subplots which develop several personalities, for better or worse. Tom is clearly a Christ figure whose faith and suffering changes hearts and leads to the freedom of many of his people. Grace is present even in oppressive conditions. A strength of the writing is the various portraits of persons of different stations of life; the natural superiority of some persons over others, not by virtue of race but by moral sensitivity that transcends mere selfishness. The flaws in the slave system which allow one man to determine the fate of another, and to ignore the sacred ties of marriage and family for economic consideration are effectively exhibited. That many slaveholders saw themselves as kind, indulgent, and looking out for the good of their slaves is cheerfully portrayed; but their heirs or immediate family might have differing views which allow no consideration of the slave’s welfare to influence their decisions about them.

One criticism of the novel is that it is melodramatic. Eva, the child full of love for her flawed parents and the slaves in the household, who dies tragically early, may strain the reader’s credulity, but even here, the differing tastes of readers in the 1840’s may be a valuable lesson, comparable as it is to some of Charles Dickens' creations. Perhaps a more troublesome issue for modern readers, especially on the high school level is the use of the n-word, accepted then but regarded as intolerable today. Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” has been banned from several high schools for that reason. But, if we can teach students to imitate the good and not the evil they encounter in literature, this should not be a definitive objection.

Few women can claim to have influenced American history as much as the author Harriet Beecher Stowe; and yet it is not fashionable to put her forth as a model for women today. Her strict moral outlook and appeal to Christian sensibilities, as well as her faithful representations of what people were like in 19th Century America is not congruent with Marxist-inspired wokeness which insists that traditional religion is the source rather than the enemy of social evil, and that in order to have influence we must break barriers rather than respect them. Similarly, the Marxist turn of the Civil Rights movement which tended to admire Malcom X rather than Martin Luther King has turned the very name of “Uncle Tom” into an epithet of contempt used for those who cowardly cooperate with the oppressor rather than fight for rights. This is ironic in that the book’s hero is, in fact, the most courageous and principled character in the book, admired and envied by every individual of good will. But not everyone wants to be a martyr, and it was (according to “The Root” website) a supporter of Marcus Garvey and his back-to-Africa movement who in a 1919 speech proclaimed separation rather than cooperation to be the only path for self-respecting Negros. It really boils down to what we regard as the salvation envisioned for American Blacks- if separation, then there is no use for Beecher’s hero; if the races are to live together in peace then the figure of Uncle Tom as a man of courage, integrity, and faith, is one to inspire emulation of all races.

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Esclavitud en USA
Reviewed in Mexico on 30 October 2017
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La cruda realidad de los esclavos en el siglo XVIII y XIX. Aunque la esclavirud despues fue trasladada a los paises del tercer mundo

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Wonderful novel, terrible edition
Reviewed in Spain on 5 February 2016
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This is an important and wonderful book that everyone should read.
But this edition that Amazon.es sell is appalling. The print is so small, and the lines so long that it is impossible to read. I ended up reading it on Kindle. They should never sell a book like this.
Moreover, the book was shipped from Germany! So in terms of delivery time there was absolutely no advantage compared with Amazon.co.uk. The one plus is you can choose a punto de recogida.
I will never order another English language book from Amazon.es.

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