Uncle Tom's Cabin

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896).
Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly.
Boston: John P. Jewett & Company; Cleveland: Jewett, Proctor & Worthington, 1852, copyright 1851. Two volumes. (BRA0822)

Few monuments of literature can claim the social and political influence achieved by Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In the decade preceding the American Civil War, during which the book sold an astounding three million copies, its story of a family torn apart by slavery galvanized the abolitionist movement and transformed slavery in the United States into a critical issue for millions who otherwise might not have been deeply concerned with the matter.