In the nineteenth century Uncle Tom's Cabin sold more copies than any other book in the world except the Bible.

As Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin traveled around the world, it was molded by the imaginations and needs of international audiences. For over 150 years it has been coopted for a dazzling array of causes far from what its author envisioned. This book tells thirteen variants of Uncle Tom’s journey, explicating the novel’s significance for Canadian abolitionists and the Liberian political elite that constituted the runaway characters’ landing points; nineteenth-century French theatergoers; liberal Cuban, Romanian, and Spanish intellectuals and social reformers; Dutch colonizers and Filipino nationalists in Southeast Asia; Eastern European Cold War communists; Muslim readers and spectators in the Middle East; Brazilian television audiences; and twentieth-century German holidaymakers. Throughout these encounters, Stowe’s story of American slavery serves as a paradigm for understanding oppression, selectively and strategically refracting the African American slave onto other iconic victims and freedom fighters. The book brings together performance historians, literary critics, and media theorists to demonstrate how the myriad cultural and political effects of Stowe’s enduring story has transformed it into a global metanarrative with national, regional, and local specificity.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Presents an annotated version of Harriet Beecher Stowe's classic novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" that describes the lives of slaves and abolitionists in the 1800s, historical discussions of the Underground Railroad, slave trade, and plantation life, and advertisements that were influenced by the novel.

This book is a plantation fiction novel. It was a strong commercial success and bestseller. Based on her growing up in Warrenton, Virginia, of an elite planter family, Eastman portrays plantation owners and slaves as mutually respectful, kind, and happy beings.

“Fascinating . . . a lively and perceptive cultural history.” —Annette Gordon-Reed, The New Yorker In this wide-ranging, brilliantly researched work, David S. Reynolds traces the factors that made Uncle Tom’s Cabin the most influential novel ever written by an American. Upon its 1852 publication, the novel’s vivid depiction of slavery polarized its American readership, ultimately widening the rift that led to the Civil War. Reynolds also charts the novel’s afterlife—including its adaptation into plays, films, and consumer goods—revealing its lasting impact on American entertainment, advertising, and race relations.

First published in book form in 1852, Uncle Tom's Cabin quickly became a bestseller, recognised as a powerful contribution to anti-slavery debates. After more than 150 years, it remains one of the most widely discussed works of American literature. Debra Rosenthal: *examines the life and career of Harriet Beecher Stowe *sets the novel within its cultural contexts and reprints related documents from the period *surveys criticism of the book from publication to the present *reprints extracts from reviews and key critical texts *annotates crucial passages from the novel, linking them to the contextual and critical materials included elsewhere in the sourcebook *suggests directions for further reading. Bringing together a wealth of material with clear critical commentary, Debra Rosenthal offers the ideal starting point for anyone beginning to study this crucial American novel.