It is the best known book about American slavery, and was so incendiary upon its first publication in 1852 that it actually ignited the social flames that led to Civil War less than a decade later. What began as a series of sketches for the Cincinnati abolitionist newspaper The National Era scandalized the North, was banned in the South, and ultimately became the bestselling novel of the 19th century. Today, controversy over this melodramatic tale of the dignified slave Tom, the brutal plantation owner Simon Legree, and ...
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It is the best known book about American slavery, and was so incendiary upon its first publication in 1852 that it actually ignited the social flames that led to Civil War less than a decade later. What began as a series of sketches for the Cincinnati abolitionist newspaper The National Era scandalized the North, was banned in the South, and ultimately became the bestselling novel of the 19th century. Today, controversy over this melodramatic tale of the dignified slave Tom, the brutal plantation owner Simon Legree, and Stowe's other vividly drawn characters continues, as modern scholars debate the work's newly appreciated feminist undertones and others decry it as the source of enduring stereotypes about African Americans. As one of the most influential books in U.S. history, it deserves to be read by all students of literature and of the American story. American abolitionist and author HARRIET BEECHER STOWE (1811-1896) was born in Connecticut, daughter of a Congregationalist minister and sister to abolitionist theologian Henry Ward Beecher. She wrote more than two dozen books, both fiction and nonfiction.
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A book everyone should read. Even President Lincoln had something good to say about this book.
bookishwench
Aug 3, 2009
Stereotyped? I say moving
Harriet Beecher Stowe's famous novel was written witha specific purpose: to refute the common thinking of her time that slavery was acceptable because it was more often benficial than harmful.
Stowe's many tales of slaves and slave-owners, good, bad and in-between, are woven together as their lives intermingle, and show plainly and fairly all sides of the question as they existed in her day. And bring the reader, while moved with compassion for the oppressed, to the ineveitable conclusion of the evil of the entire system.
Themes of Christianity runeverywhere through the novel, giving hope to the victims and conviction to the oppressors, as well as to the silent observers.
I couldn't get the images of hopelessness out of my mind long after putting the book down. I highly reccommend it, but caution the reader that the 'n-word' appears quite often.
