Release Date: 1999
Pages: 438
Genre: Classics
Reviewed By WC
Book Description: The narrative drive of Stowe's classic novel is often overlooked in the heat of the controversies surrounding its anti-slavery sentiments. In fact, it is a compelling adventure story with richly drawn characters and has earned a place in both literary and American history.
WC's Review: This is one the experts got right. Uncle Tom's Cabin is indeed a classic. It remains a classic though few folks read it. Folks who understand significance and care about the travails of America's foundation will appreciate this extraordinary book of the horrors of slavery.
Lincoln once greeted the author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, with the backhand compliment that through this book she was the gal primarily responsible for creating renewed fervor over the long stagnate issue of humans regarded as property. Some even proffer that she is also accountable for hastening the beginning of the inevitable war of Southern independence/Northern aggression.
The character purity in this historic masterpiece is rarely replicated. Little Eva is a treasure, father St Clare is a genuine man of integrity, as are many plantation owners, the slaves, Aunt Chloe and others in the cabin are righteous, Cassy is clever, and Uncle Tom is proof that men after God's own heart walk the earth. Nefarious slave trader Simon Legree is testament that Satan destroys the souls and spirits of the downtrodden.
There are increasing works on the deep wound that keeps America from achieving true humanity. This remains the most powerful.
About the Author: Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe (June 14, 1811 – July 1, 1896) was an American author and abolitionist, whose novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) attacked the cruelty of slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential, even in Britain. It made the political issues of the 1850s regarding slavery tangible to millions, energizing anti-slavery forces in the American North. It angered and embittered the South. The impact is summed up in a commonly quoted statement apocryphally attributed to Abraham Lincoln. When he met Stowe, it is claimed that he said, "So you're the little woman that started this great war!"
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