Uncle Tom's Cabin: Or, Life Among the Lowly (The John Harvard Library)

623 Pages·2009·1.66 MB·English

by  Harriet Beecher Stowe

THE JOHN HARVARD LIBRARY
The John Harvard Library, founded in 1959, publishes essential
American writings, including novels, poetry, memoirs, criti-
cism, and works of social and political history, representing all
periods, from the beginning of settlement in America to the
twenty-ªrst century. The purpose of The John Harvard Library
is to make these works available to scholars and general readers
in affordable, authoritative editions.

H A R R I E T B E E C H E R S T O W E
U N C L E T O M ’ S C A B I N
O R , L I F E A M O N G T H E L O W LY
INTRODUCTION BY DAVID BROMWICH
j o h n
h a r v a r d
l i b r a r y

THE BELKNAP PRESS OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, Eng land 2009
Copyright © 2009 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
all rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Cataloging-in-Publication Data available from the Library of Congress
ISBN: 978-0-674-03407-5
Contents
Introduction by David Bromwich ix
Note on the Text xxvii
Chronology of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Life xxix
UNCLE TOM’S CABIN
OR, LIFE AMONG THE LOWLY
Preface 1
I In Which the Reader Is Introduced to a
Man of Humanity 5
II The Mother 18
III The Husband and Father 23
IV An Evening in Uncle Tom’s Cabin 30
vi CONTENTS
V Showing the Feelings of Living Property on
Changing Owners 45
VI Discovery 56
VII The Mother’s Struggle 68
VIII Eliza’s Escape 85
IX In Which It Appears That a Senator Is
But a Man 104
X The Property Is Carried Off 124
XI In Which Property Gets into an Improper
State of Mind 137
XII Select Incident of Lawful Trade 154
XIII The Quaker Settlement 175
XIV Evangeline 187
XV Of Tom’s New Master, and Various Other
Matters 200
XVI Tom’s Mistress and Her Opinions 220
XVII The Freeman’s Defence 244
XVIII Miss Ophelia’s Experiences and Opinions 265
XIX Miss Ophelia’s Experiences and Opinions,
Continued 285
XX Topsy 309
CONTENTS vii
XXI Kentuck 328
XXII “The Grass Withereth—The Flower Fadeth” 335
XXIII Henrique 345
XXIV Foreshadowings 355
XXV The Little Evangelist 363
XXVI Death 370
XXVII “This Is the Last of Earth” 387
XXVIII Re union 397
XXIX The Unprotected 416
XXX The Slave Warehouse 426
XXXI The Middle Passage 439
XXXII Dark Places 447
XXXIII Cassy 458
XXXIV The Quadroon’s Story 468
XXXV The Tokens 481
XXXVI Emmeline and Cassy 489
XXXVII Liberty 498
XXXVIII The Victory 506
XXXIX The Stratagem 519
viii CONTENTS
XL The Martyr 532
XLI The Young Master 541
XLII An Authentic Ghost Story 549
XLIII Results 558
XLIV The Liberator 568
XLV Concluding Remarks 573
Selected Bibliography 585
Introduction
The death of Uncle Tom, the good husband and gentle slave who
epitomizes the Christian virtues of charity and self-sac ri fice, came to
Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1851 in a sudden “vision” that inspired the
writing of Uncle Tom’s Cabin over many months. Stowe was thirty-
nine and known already as a gifted observer. She had recently wit-
nessed the death of her youngest child, “the most beautiful and most
loved” of seven children, as she described him; there were “circum-
stances,” she said, “about his death of such peculiar bitterness” that
for the first time she was made to understand the feelings of a slave
mother from whom a child at any moment could be snatched away.
She believed that her private tragedy was the incitement for the book,
but it had a longer and more public background.
Stowe came from a family that embodied the New Eng land con-
science at its unappeasable height. Her father, Lyman Beecher, was
ix