The Annotated Uncle Tom's Cabin

Book Description

Henry Louis Gates Jr. redefines Uncle Tom's Cabin with this seminal interpretation of the great American novel.

Declared worthless and dehumanizing by James Baldwin in 1949, Uncle Tom's Cabin has lacked literary credibility for fifty years. Now, in a ringing refutation of Baldwin, Henry Louis Gates Jr. demonstrates the literary transcendence of Harriet Beecher Stowe's masterpiece. Uncle Tom's Cabin, first published in 1852, galvanized the American public as no other work of fiction has ever done. The editors animate pre-Civil War life with rich insights into the lives of slaves, abolitionists, and the American reading public. Examining the lingering effects of the novel, they provide new insights into emerging race-relation, women's, gay, and gender issues. With reproductions of rare prints, posters, and photographs, this book is also one of the most thorough anthologies of Uncle Tom images up to the present day. 2-color throughout; 32 pages of color illustrations, 150 black-and-white illustrations.

Customer Reviews:

Too many notes.......2007-09-17

This is a moving, important, and captivating novel that easily stands on its own. The annotations, while helpful when expounding upon literal and historical references, are otherwise largely uninformative. As a previous reviewer noted, the tone is often quite personal and immaterial ( "my eyes glazed over" etc.) One passage being referred to as being eye-glazingly boring and superfluous was in fact quite brilliant and necessary for insight into one of the more complex and fully realized characters in the novel ( Augustine St. Clare). I don't feel the editors' job is to instruct the reader when to be disinterested. The editors also have a tendency to give away key plot points throughout, which did not endear them to this reader. They also fixate on odd themes that seem overindulgent, such as what they consider to be Shelby's oral fixations, which seem to me to be nothing more than the daily pastimes of a southern gentleman of leisure, i.e. eating and smoking. They can go out of their way to belabor points such as these.
The tone of some of the comments are also startlingly informal, as in "George is a little too talky here." Talky???????? That wouldn't even pass in an eighth grade English paper. Not to mention that George, at this point in the novel, is under great duress and making an impassioned stand for his belief and his survival. Talky. Harumph.
So skip the notes, but by all means devour the story. It is worth it.

excellent background but read the novel first.......2006-11-24

John Updike reviews this new edition in the Nov 6 New Yorker, which is available online and well worth looking up. With 100 pages to go, Updike tired of the "irritable sniping from the sidelines" and switched to the standard Library of America edition.

A few months ago I reviewed the Penguin edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin here in Amazon. I suggested that if you decide to read the novel, skip the Introduction until you are done reading, because it gives away several plot points that you are better off encountering for yourself directly.

The same applies to this new annotated edition I think. The novel is not so difficult that you can't simply read it through on your own. I suggest doing that first, in a standard edition, then going through this edition. Otherwise you are having only a mediated experience of the work. In other words, let the work stand or fall on its own merits first, before exposing yourself to the opinions of others about it.

Having read the standard edition earlier I then read this annotated edition "inside out". That is, I read the introductory chapters and the annotations themselves straight through and used Stowe's text as the reference. This is a better approach I think than trying to read the text for the first time with the annotations nearby, where they do intrude and interrupt the flow of the story.

When reading the annotations this way though you do notice the inconsistency in voice that Updike mentions. Most are carefully neutral but you get an occasional first-person remark like "I confess my eyes glazed over" (gee that's helpful), then "again, our eyes glaze over" or "I recall Baldwin's...". Or "I am close to turning the page." then "...bore us silly", in the same annotation. As if the two editors read, and experienced eye-glaze, in unison? Since there seems to be two distinct voices at play it would have been useful for each annotation to have been initialed by its author, Gates or Robbins. I started trying to guess which editor wrote which annotation--I suspect Robbins provided the majority of the historical background while Gates did the Baldwins, the "I"s, and the trendier ones ("To the modern reader, Adolph is unmistakably 'metrosexual'"). This disparity in tone is also obvious between Gates' public interview (Boston Globe, Nov 12) in which he too-casually terms the work racist, and the less judgmental and more nuanced approach of the majority of the annotations themselves.

Getting past that though the annotations contain a wealth of useful background. The Biblical references, the distinctions among the slaves, the nuances of hypocrisy, the literary conventions, the sheer mechanics of the business, the conventional wisdom of the time about the races, all are excellent and thorough.

So, if you are going to read Uncle Tom's Cabin, do so first, then get this edition. It's an indispensable addition to the work.

Average customer rating:

Uncle Tom was certainly no "Uncle Tom"
Great Classic
A different perspective on a much avoided subject
great book at LSMS
Explains a Great Deal

Uncle Tom's Cabin (Wordsworth Classics)
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Manufacturer: Wordsworth Editions Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1840224029

Product Description

Edited and with an Introduction and Notes by Dr Keith Carabine. University of Kent at Canterbury.
Uncle Tom's Cabin is the most popular, influential and controversial book written by an American. Stowe s rich, panoramic novel passionately dramatises why the whole of America is implicated in and responsible for the sin of slavery, and resoundingly concludes that only 'repentance, justice and mercy' will prevent the onset of 'the wrath of Almighty God!'.

Customer Reviews:

Uncle Tom was certainly no "Uncle Tom".......2007-08-29

Back a few years ago, I bought the entire series of Library of America books, some 173 books, each with as many as 1,600 small-print pages. Typically, each volume contains several books (say novels) by an author.

The quality of the writing they have selected is marvelous. There are very few "dogs". Below are my ratings of all the stuff I've read so far (a miniscule fraction of the total library), along with, of course, my completely nonsensical (often sports or pop culture) author nicknames.

And they keep sending me new books faster than I can read the existing ones...

Practically all that I've read ranges from good to fantastic, and I stop reading ones I don't like, so almost all of the books cited below are worthy by my standards. No stars means good, * means especially good, ** means great, and I think I also gave one or two books ***. The numbers are the series # of the book out of the 173 published so far.

A book of Henry James' fiction (not in this series) that I read about 3 years ago got me started on this quest, a supplement to my quest of playing the entire history of baseball via APBA.

1. Herman "Franks" Melville: Typee* ("Idyllic") 316 pps
1. Herman "Franks" Melville: Omoo ("Picks up where Typee left off") 330 pps

2. Nathaniel "Nate the Skate" Hawthorne: Assorted Stories ("Some hard to follow") 301 pps

4. Harriet "and Ozzy" Beecher Stowe: Uncle Tom's Cabin** ("Uncle Tom is no 'Uncle Tom'") 520 pps

5. Mark "Shania" Twain: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer* ("Hilarious moments for a different kind of Tom") 216 pps

10. Nathaniel "Nate the Skate" Hawthorne: Fanshawe* ("Young scholar, romance, skullduggery") 114 pps

6. Jack "Gene" London: The Call of the Wild ("Savage") 86 pps
6. Jack "Gene" London: White Fang* ("Roger Vick-type dog-fighting
action") 198 pps

8. William Dean "Bailey" Howells: A Foregone Conclusion* ("Gripping, intricate romance") 172 pps
8. William Dean "Bailey" Howells: A Modern Instance ("Marriage gone awry in repressed times") 418 pps

11. Francis "Shibe" Parkman: Pioneers of France in the New World** ("What it was REALLY like") 330 pps
11. Francis "Shibe" Parkman: The Jesuits in North America* ("More of these accurate depictions") 382 pps

14. Henry "Don" Adams: Democracy** ("Real politics 1800's-style")

16. Washington "Dr. J" Irving: Early writings ("Boring at times") 87 pps

18. Stephen "Whooping" Crane: Maggie: A Girl of the Streets ("Fascinating but grim") 74 pps
18. Stephen "Whooping" Crane: The Red Badge of Courage* ("True face of war") 134 pps

19. Edgar "Teletubbie" Poe: Assorted Stories ("Truly weird") 188 pps

29. Henry "Edgeron" James: Washington Square* ("Plain woman trapped") 190 pps

30. Edith Wharton "School": The House of Mirth* ("Reese Witherspoon plays role in movie") 348 pps

33. Frank "Chuck" Norris: Vandover and the Brute ("Wolf-man emerges") 260 pps
33. Frank "Chuck" Norris: McTeague** ("Greed prevails") 312 pps

35. Willa "Thrilla" Cather: Assorted stories ("Oblique") 76 pps

36. Theodore "Early" Dreiser: Sister Carrie** ("Young lives go opposite directions") 456 pps

37. Benjamin "Joe" Franklin Assorted Writings* ("Brilliant satire") 87 pps

39. Flannery "Father" O'Connor: Wise Blood ("Liked better at 25") 132 pps

55. Richard "Gary" Wright: Lawd Today!** ("Unforgettable humor, violence") 220 pps

59. Sinclair "Jerry" Lewis: Main Street* ("Small-town USA") 486 pps

69. "Ornery" Sarah Orne Jewett: Deephaven* ("Atmospheric")

72. John "Franken" Steinbeck: The Pastures of Heaven** ("Modern Gothic") 170 pps

74. Zora Neale "Zorro" Hurston: Jonah's Gourd Vine ("Black preacher")

97. James "I think I'm going" Baldwin: Go Tell it on the Mountain ("Conversion experience") 216 pps

101. Eudora "The Explorer" Welty: The Robber Bridegroom ("Ridiculous fairy tale") 88 pps

103. Brockden "Les" Brown: Wieland* ("Early Gothic chills") 228 pps

111. Henry "Etta" James: Assorted Stories 1864-74** ("Consistently compelling") 430 pps

117. F. Scott "Ella" Fitzgerald: This Side of Paradise* ("Ultimately sublime") 252 pps

126. Dawn "Boog" Powell: Dance Night* ("Small-town romance in 1920's") 204 pps

134. Paul "Super" Bowles: The Sheltering Sky* ("Sophisticates lost in Africa") 252 pps

148. James T. "Turk" Farrell: Young Lonigan* ("Coming of age in tough streets") 176 pps

164. William Faulkner "Pontiac, Buick, GMC Trucks": Soldier's
Pay*** ("Unique, gripping") 256 pps
164. William Faulkner "Pontiac, Buick, GMC Trucks": Mosquitos** ("Indescribable romp") 284 pps
164. William Faulkner "Pontiac, Buick, GMC Trucks": Flags in the Dust ("Doomed family") 336 pps
164. William Faulkner "Pontiac, Buick, GMC Trucks": The Sound and the Fury ("Bewildering") 268 pps

Great Classic.......2007-06-01

Our book club decided to read some old classics and we were all surprised to find that none of our members had read Uncle Tom's Cabin, except a French woman who had read it in school in French! A little hard to get into with the style of writing and the dialog, it soon became a real page-turner for me as I got caught up in the story and the characters. Stowe paints a very interesting picture of the times, and it provoked one of the best discussions that our book club has had. No wonder this book was a best seller, both in the US and Europe. Highly recommend this book!

A different perspective on a much avoided subject.......2007-05-25

This story is the most personal account of living in the time of slavery that I have ever read, and I thought it was phenomenal. It was poignant and well written, and it really tugged at the heart strings. What I enjoyed most about the story was how it looked at the point of view of so many players during the slave owning era (Northern compassionates, Southern slave owners with and without guilt, slaves, mothers, husbands, families, etc.). Since I am not from the South, I had a little trouble with the southern dialog, but it didn't keep me from understanding the flow of the story.
I am very glad that I read this book considering history classes don't really delve into the emotional and personal history of slavery in the South. School just treats this period of time as a "stain" on our history and doesn't like to confront it for what it was.
When I look back at the time this book was written, it must've blown people's hair back. For those people of the 1800's to see that slaves were not merely "property," but had the capability of having the same family values, religious beliefs, and sense of social insight as themselves must've made them think twice about the way they treated these people. No wonder why this book was one of the catalysts to spark the Civil War.
If you don't look at this story from the point it was written, you'll lose something in the translation. But if you imagine someone reading this before the Civil War and imagine what they are learning about the human soul, the equality of it whether it is white or not, you'll feel enriched.
I recommend that everyone read this story. It is full of so many valuable life lessons (content of character, faith, compassion, loyalty) that you shouldn't pass it up.

great book at LSMS.......2007-04-27

Uncle Tom's Cabin is a great inspiring book that shows true events in U.S. History. It is a book that shows how evil and cruel slavery really was. After Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote the book during slavery, it helped everyone understand what was happening in their world and this book turned more people towards antislavery which fueled the Civil War. Uncle Tom's Cabin shows people to be kind towards others. This is a great book about the slave days and was enjoyable to read.

Explains a Great Deal.......2007-03-26

I read Uncle Tom's Cabin a few years ago, and was genuinely touched. I saw immediately why it became one of the most influential books in the history of our country, and possibly the world. The story of Uncle Tom is sure to leave you changed, whether you are black or white, racist or humanitarian. It really explains how different people viewed the institution of slavery. After reading this book, many die-hard proponents of slavery gave up defending it. And abollitionists were fired up more than ever before. If you read only 5 books this year, let Uncle Tom's Cabin be one of them. You'll never look at slavery, US history, or the plight of black people the same!

Uncle Tom's Cabin (Norton Critical Editions)

Average customer rating:

A period piece, but what a period piece
Uncle Tom's Cabin - Review
A central text in American Literature and History
My View of Uncle Tom's Cabin
This is definitely the one to buy!

Uncle Tom's Cabin (Norton Critical Editions)
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0393963039

Customer Reviews:

A period piece, but what a period piece.......2007-05-20

I realized recently that I had never read this important novel in my younger years, so I took it up as an adult.

This book should not be judged as a work of literature, but as an intensely political novel, a polemic against slavery. Stowe steps out of the novel from time to time, for example, to express her hatred of slavery and of the slave trade, and to call upon all Christians to act to abolish slavery. As a polemic, it is masterful, and its shortcomings as a novel (too many coincidences, excessive sentimentality, some fairly wooden characters) fade away in the reader's mind.

This is a period piece, a work of its time, and Stowe is not free from attitudes that we would term racist today. She holds many stereotypes of black people -- they are more emotional, more susceptible to religious belief, less cultured -- while at the same time declaring that slavery is the worst evil known to man. Interestingly, Stowe is as tough on Northerners who tolerate slavery or benefit from it as she is on Southerners who keep slaves.

Highly recommended to Americans of all ages and ethnic backgrounds.

Uncle Tom's Cabin - Review.......2006-12-21

A catalyst for the civil war, this book gives vivid details on the living conditions of the black slaves. The book's literary worth lies in the fact that people can make a difference by speaking out, and by preserving a kind of fictional history of the African American's pain, despite being redundant, rube and rife with tautology. The story is about Tom, a slave who saves his master's daughter and is promised his freedom. But his master dies before Tom is actually freed. The family falls upon hard times and Tom is sold to a horrible slave owner named Simon Legree. Legree tried everything to degrade Tom, but tom holds firmly to his religious convictions. In a frenzy of anger, Legree beats Tom to death.
Trish New, author of The Thrill of Hope and South State Street Journal.

A central text in American Literature and History.......2005-01-07

Uncle Tom is probably the most important single book written in the United States of America. No one is really familiar with American culture, literature, relgion, and history if she or he has not read Uncle Tom.

To understand this book, I would urge people to consult Eric J. Sundquist's book New Essays on Uncle Tom's Cabin (The American Novel) and Jane Tompkin's Sensational Designs. The 19th Century world and reader that Stowe aimed at read and understood things so differently, that you will miss much without knowing how to look at this book the way Stowe wrote to them and the way they read.

This book has a broad purpose: literary to decide what is wrong with the entire world and present an answer. If you follow the sweep of the book you will find Stowe takes on everything from whether the issues of the 1848 revolutions can be resolved on the side of Democracy, to the question of marital relations amogn the free and the white. The issue of slavery is not the book's only focus. It is, in fact, the solution.

Stowe's real thesis here is that American Chattel slavery is the number one evil in the world, that this evil corrupts every institution in society North and South and corrupts far beyond the borders of the United States, and that no compromise with it or avoidance of it is possible.

To Stowe, slavery is an abomination not just because of the cruelty, savagery, exploitation, and degradation involved, but above all, it is an abomination against God, the most unChrist-like behavior possible.

Thus the relgious solution she offers is to become more Christlike in your opposition to slavery and to finally undergrow the Christic experience of dying for your sins and being reborn in Jesus Christ. That's right, in Stowe's time evangelical Christianity, rather than being a fob for right-wing politics, was practiced by some of the militant and serious opponents of slavery.

Stowe creates figures that are Christlike who like Christ die rather than yield to sin and influence the others in their faith. The supreme figure is of course Uncle Tom. Uncle Tom, as a a pejorative, comes not from this novel, but from the Tom shows that blossomed in the late 19th century which were a presentation of a mock version of this story with racist minstrel like charicatures of the African American characters.

In this book, Uncle Tom is a physically majestic, heroic, dignified person, whose faith and dignity are never corrupted, whose death is shown as a parallel to that of Christ in the resurrection of the souls of all around him required to eliminate Slavery. If he is passive, never disobeys his masters, and seems to have not much of a material interest of his own in life, it is because to Stowe this a reflection of his Christic nature.

No doubt at best Stowe sees him as a "noble savage" at Best. There is no doubt if one reads this book and even more clearly STowe's Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin which provided documentation for this book's depiction of slavery, that it is clear that Stowe did not believe African Americans were equal to whites. Her then-current immigrationist views are expressed in the way the one intelligent independently acting Black couple presented here leave the US for Canada once they escape slavery.

Yet, this book accomplished the purpose it had. It galvanized millions of Americans and more millions around the world to dramatically oppose slavery. Uncle Tom was one of the first true international best sellers. In a smaller country, where literacy was lower, and when many people bought books through private libraries where families shared books and the book was often read to family gatherings rather than by one person, Uncle Tom sold two hundred thousand copies in its first year and sold a million copies between its publication and the civil war.

Stowe was honest in her afterward and in other writings to say that her description of slavery in Uncle Tom is much prettier and more nicer than slavery was. She believed an accurate depiction of slavery--Stowe had lived in Cincinatti on the board with slaving Kentucky and traveled through the South--would be so revolting that her target audience of Northern whites would not read this book.

Her book launched a torrent of responses from white southerners as could be expected. However, the popularity of her book encouraged white authors, but especially Black authors to write antislavery books that responded to Stowe. Some of the foundations of Black American literature by authors like Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, Harriet Jacobs, and Martin Delany are essentially response to Uncle Tom.

Perhaps the most dramatic is Delany's Blake or the Huts of America whose character is a double to Uncle Tom. However, Delany's hero does not submit to being sold "down the river." He instead runs away and travels throughout the US following the same course as the travels in Uncle Tom showing how slave conditions are so much worse than Stowe showed. Finished with that business, Blake leaves the United States for Cuba where he becomes part of a group of Afro-Cubans unwilling to suffer like Christ and Uncle Tom. Like the current leaders of Cuba, they start to organize an international revolution of Slaves and the oppressed!

My View of Uncle Tom's Cabin.......2004-02-26

The Book, Uncle Tom's Cabin, when first published, took in an amount of 10,000 dollars to the Author, Harriet Beecher Stowe. This was believed to be the largest sum of money to any author from a sale of a single book produced in such a short period of time.
Stowe has the skill in describing her characters. There is no book, in which a Negro's life had been portrayed so life-like such as this way. Uncle Tom and Eliza's fate is the interest in this story, for they are somewhat heroes of slave times.
The opening is a deal of slaves, to a slave proprietor with no feeling whatsoever. Haley is making a bargain with a nice caring slaveholder, Shelby, who is in major debt. Haley is a villain and wants these slaves all for himself. Because there is no federal law which can compel the slave states to resign the "property" which they hold. These states are as free to maintain slavery, as are the states of the North who rid themselves of this scandal.
With Stowe describing these characters feelings, it feels like she is going right along with them on their journeys to freedom and deeper into slavery. There is a feeling there, while reading, which no one can describe. It is a shame that Stowe does not know how she excites her reader's passion towards all these characters, and how Uncle Tom's Cabin is now known as a classic.

This is definitely the one to buy!.......2002-03-16

This version of Stowe's classic text includes reproductions of orginal historical documents at the back, literary criticism of the text, and some of the original illustrations. The book is well-made, stands up to the stress of reading (paper is thin but not too thin, like some anthologies).

As for the text-- this is the book that some say caused Abraham Lincoln to write the Emancipation Proclamation. An "Uncle Tom" has come to mean a black person who sells out to the white system-- but in so many ways, that is not at all what Uncle Tom does in the book. Stowe wrote the book to change what she saw as an unjust system, an evil system-- and at times, the text is very didactic (teacherly) and very preachy about religion. It's a fine "sentimental" book-- and a fine historical document. It's also a pretty good story. Yes, there are some places where we could just get a tooth ache from the syrup of the overly dramatized scenes (you'll see when you read about Little Eva). But it's a certain style of writing that accomplished Stowe's goal of getting the women who may not have owned slaves but who benefitted from the system (white, northern, wealthy ones) to realize the problems and move to CHANGE them.

Book Description

Published in 1852, Uncle Tom's Cabin brought the abolitionists' message to the public conscience - no woman before or since has so moved America to take action against an injustice. Indeed, Abraham Lincoln greeted Stowe in 1863 as "the little lady who made this big war."

Eliza Harris, a slave whose child is to be sold, escapes her beloved home on the Shelby plantation in Kentucky and heads North, eluding the hired slave catchers. Aided by the underground railroad, Quakers, and others opposed to the Fugitive Slave Act, Eliza, her son, and her husband George run toward Canada.

As the Harrises flee to freedom, another slave, Uncle Tom, is sent "down the river" for sale. Too loyal to abuse his master's trust, too Christian to rebel, Tom wrenches himself from his family. Befriending a white child, Evangeline St. Clare, Tom is purchased by her father and taken to their home in New Orleans. Although Evangeline's father finally resolves to free his slaves, his sudden death places him in the ranks of those who mean well by their slaves but never take action. Tom is sent farther downriver to Simon Legree's plantation, and the whips of Legree's overseers.

Customer Reviews:

disapointed.......2007-05-16

This CD collection is difficult to use. Book chapters are not identified on the lable or in individual CDs it is broken in to 30 second sound bites, which makes it easy to pause for a moment but difficult to find the begining of a chapter since the chapter may begin at 20 seconds in to the sound bite. Want to listen on your ipod good luck with hundreds of unnamed tracks. My students and I gave up and went back to the old audio tapes where we could find the chapter we wanted to listen to with out jugling 16 unlabled CDs

Great CDs, but Difficult to Follow the Listening Tracks.......2007-03-09

I bought this book on CD for my son who is reading it in class. It really helps to comprehend the book when you have a really good reader like on these CDs. They had a good idea in cutting the chapters into 1 or 2 minute tracks, so you can easily skip ahead. Unfortunately, when you're trying to find the beginning of a chapter, it's almost impossible because they weren't careful to put the beginnings of chapters at the beginnings of tracks.

Had to do it for school.......2006-08-07

The book is a good story, not one I would choose if I were picking on my own. My son had to read it for school, however, the book on CD was a huge help.

Great story, well done!.......2006-03-09

I bought this to listen to on my commute to school, since I was required to read it for a class. When trying to read the book, I found it difficult to understand at times. This CD is so well done, I never had any problem understanding what was going on. Buck Schirner does an excellent job of reading the story, getting the dialect and conveying the characters. I would and have already recommended this CD. Stowe's story is a classic and this CD is one I'm keeping!

Average customer rating:

Ok I guess

Uncle Tom's Cabin (Thrift Edition)
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0486440281

Book Description

The moving abolitionist novel that fueled the fire of the human rights debate in 1852 and melodramatically condemned the institution of slavery through such powerfully realized characters as Tom, Eliza, Topsy, Eva, and Simon Legree. First published more than 150 years ago, this monumental work is today being reexamined by critics, scholars, and students.

Customer Reviews:

Ok I guess.......2006-07-15

Well I bought this book for a summer reading assignment and I have to say it isn't the most interesting book in fact I don't really like it at all. I know its a classic but seriously, read this only if you must. The only plus side is that this is the cheapest version of it haha.

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

Average customer rating:

Penguin Edition, edited by Douglas, is Not Reliable
A must book for Everybody
patronizin and preachifyin
The unreadable classic- or Greatness of Influence vs. Literary quality
The book that started the Civil War

Uncle Tom's Cabin: Or, Life Among the Lowly (The Penguin American Library)
Harriet Beecher Stowe , and Ann Douglas
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0140390030

Book Description

Arguably the most influential novel in American history, Uncle Tom's Cabin fanned the embers of the struggle between free states and slave states into the fire of the Civil War-and is as powerful and relevant today as when it was first published a century and a half ago.

Customer Reviews:

Penguin Edition, edited by Douglas, is Not Reliable.......2007-07-07

My one-star rating applies only to the Penguin edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin. The Penguin edition, edited by Ann Douglas, has a high rate of transcription error. So it is not suitable for serious study.

I listed a selection (over 100) of the transcription errors in the Penguin edition for a presentation at the 2007 American Literature Association conference. For example, the Penguin edition on page 619 (in the 4 copies that I've examined) has the following line:

"If the laws of New England were so arranged that a master could [it]now and then[/it] torture an apprentice to death, would it be received with equal composure?"

In the 1852 Jewett edition (the first printing in book form), the sentence included an additional clause:

"If the laws of New England were so arranged that a master could [it]now and then[/it] torture an apprentice to death, without a possibility of being brought to justice, would it be received with equal composure?"

This error--the omission of "without a possibility of being brought to justice"--diminishes a key theme in Stowe's work. I encourage scholars, teachers, and students to purchase Ammons's or Sklar's editions of UTC. Among editions that I've examined, those editions have more reliable texts. I have not examined the new Bedford edition (Railton) or the new Norton edition (Gates and Robbins).

If you choose to buy some other edition, perhaps your choice will encourage Penguin to publish a corrected edition. This edition was ranked 41,945 at Amazon when I wrote this review in July of 2007.

A must book for Everybody.......2007-01-18

I found this book very well written. It is interesting that the author chose not only to show the terrible suffering that came from slavery, but also she revealed how slavery extracts a toll on the master. Personally it exemplifies how religion can (as in many cases throughout history) support and justify cruelty and violence. This book should stir everyone at the gut level. I don't want to forget to add that I like the Modern Library Classics format. At the end of the book is discussion questions and commentary by other famous authors.

patronizin and preachifyin.......2006-05-23

I wasn't ready to enjoy this novel and the first 60 pp reinforced this prejudice. The beginning is filled with Stowe's rendition of slave's speech--"ah's gwyne ter make corn pone fer Mas'r"--which most modern readers will find demeaning. Fortunately this tones down.

As a non-religious person I have a low tolerance for preachifyin, but it bothered me less as the novel progressed, as it became obvious that the most effective argument against slavery at the time was righteous Christianity. The issue was not the equality of the races, though Stowe does allow for that (not bad for 1850!), but that a Christian should not own humans, period. Whether the slaves were happy-go-lucky, sentimental, childlike, superstitious--all these supposed attributes of one race or another--all these were irrelevant to her.

Through the character of St Clare she argues that the greater sin of slave owners was their hypocrisy rather than the ownership per se. That owners might claim justification from some obscure passage in the Bible was an outrage. Better to simply admit that you hold slaves because you have the power to do so, and it makes your life easier. If you are to be wicked, admit it at least--don't hide behind some nonsensical religious rationalization. If the slave owners could be honest about their reasons, then there might be hope of winning the moral argument.

The characters are one-dimensional--pure good, pure evil, not much in between. Most are what we now see as stereotypes. They merely function as tools of the plot and the point. What I didn't expect was that the story itself would be as exciting as it was. It moves right along. This overcomes the preachiness and the simplicity of the characters, and is the reason so many read the book. Even for all its patronizin and preachifyin, it's a page-turner.

As others have noted it is amazing to see how "Uncle Tom", portrayed as noble and saintly, has become such a term of derision.

Finally, if you are going to read this, don't read the Introduction until after you've read the novel, as it gives away several plot points that you are better off encountering for yourself in the novel.

The unreadable classic- or Greatness of Influence vs. Literary quality.......2006-01-15

When Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe he reportedly said, "This is the little woman who made the great war". The tremendous influence of this book on Anti-Slavery attitudes are considered to be a very real factor in leading to atmosphere which helped bring about the Civil War. This work is thus in terms of its 'real effect' in the 'real world ' far more important than 'Moby Dick' or " Leaves of Grass' or 'The Scarlet Letter ' or 'Walden', the greatest books of the American Renaissance.
The literary quality of the book is in no proportion to the Influence which it had.
I have found it an almost impossible read, in good part because of its language.

The book that started the Civil War.......2006-01-09

Throughout history, few books have garnered more controversy than Harriet Beecher Stowe's UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. When he met Mrs. Stowe in 1861, President Lincoln proclaimed, "So you're the little woman that wrote the book started this great war." That may be a bit of an overstatement, but the book certainly had enormous social and political consequences.

In the social structure that has evolved since the emancipation of slaves in this country, few labels have a more derogatory intent to the black person than being called an "Uncle Tom". We hear it repeatedly used to indicate a black person who chooses not to follow in lockstep with the direction of radical black anarchist leaders. For the life of me, I can't grasp that concept. What greater compliment than to be referred to as a man who faced such immense adversity yet who remained steadfast in his faith.

I realize the argument is that Tom did as he was told and refused to stand up for himself, but that argument only portrays the shallowness of a society that has been more and more anti-Christian as time goes by. Those who would make that argument fail to see the strength and courage it takes for a true Christian to resist temptation and consistently put personal challenge into the Lord's hands.

This book, today, receives a tremendous amount of criticism for Stowe's constant Christian "preaching" throughout the book. Stowe, born in 1811, is of the founding daughter generation. Her strong portrayal of Christian virtue is yet another reminder that America was founded on Christian principles. People today, in our society where Christianity is under constant criticism, hate to admit that America once was, and was intended to be, a Christian nation. At the time of its publishing, Stowe's work was criticized for being biased towards anti-slavery, but was never criticized for its expression of Christian virtues.

For me, and I'm sure others, the book does have one great flaw. Mrs. Stowe was well known for accurately depicting the vernacular of a particular region. While that may add authenticity to a story, it also creates a painfully tedious read. That is the case here. This is not a book that most people could pick up and read at once. For me, it was a long daily process of 10-20 pages at a time.

Here is an example of what I'm referring to;

"I'm thinkin' my old man won't know de boys and de baby. Lor'! she's de biggest gal, now, -good she is, too, and peart, Polly is. She's out to the house, now, watchin' de hoe-cake. I's got jist de very patern my old man liked so much a bakin'. Jist sich as I gin him the mornin' he was took off. Lord bless us! How I felt, dat ar mornin'!"

I'm sure there are readers who appreciate such authenticity, but for me, and I'm sure untold masses of high-school students who once found this on their "required reading" list, that is just plain tedious. My only other knock on the book is the "happily ever after" ending which Stowe gave to several of the main characters. For those once trapped in the bondage of slavery, I don't believe too many of them lived out that kind of scenario.

That said, if you've not read this book, do so. Find a way struggle through it. Stowe gives portrayals of both sides of the slavery coin. By that I mean, she managed to portray that many slave owners considered their slaves as family members and treated them with respect and kindness, while there were also other owners who viewed slaves as mere possessions to be abused and defiled.

This book may not have started the Civil War, but it most certainly had a profound effect upon society like few books in history have ever had. That fact, in and of itself, makes this book a must read for everyone.

Monty Rainey
www.juntosociety.com

Uncle Tom's Cabin (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (B&N Classics)

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Uncle Tom's Cabin: History Without the Textbook

Uncle Tom's Cabin (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (B&N Classics)
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Manufacturer: Barnes & Noble Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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Uncle Tom's Cabin (Cliffs Notes)
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ASIN: 1593080387

Book Description

Nearly every young author dreams of writing a book that will literally change the world. A few have succeeded, and Harriet Beecher Stowe is such a marvel. Although the American anti-slavery movement had existed at least as long as the nation itself, Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) galvanized public opinion as nothing had before. The book sold 10,000 copies in its first week and 300,000 in its first year. Its vivid dramatization of slavery’s cruelties so aroused readers that it is said Abraham Lincoln told Stowe her work had been a catalyst for the Civil War.

Today the novel is often labeled condescending, but its characters—Tom, Topsy, Little Eva, Eliza, and the evil Simon Legree—still have the power to move our hearts. Though “Uncle Tom” has become a synonym for a fawning black yes-man, Stowe’s Tom is actually American literature’s first black hero, a man who suffers for refusing to obey his white oppressors. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a living, relevant story, passionate in its vivid depiction of the cruelest forms of injustice and inhumanity—and the courage it takes to fight against them.

Customer Reviews:

Uncle Tom's Cabin: History Without the Textbook.......2005-07-04

Uncle Tom's Cabin, which is set between 1840 and 1850, is a novel that brought the cruelties of slavery into American homes. It unveils how slaves, like Uncle Tom and Eliza, were treated by slave owners, like Simon Legree. Throughout the novel there's a strong contrast between good and evil, which is personified by the different slave owners. First, Tom and Eliza serve a Christian family. Tom embraces Christianity through his compassion for others, honesty, evangelism, humbleness and his obedience without compromising his beliefs. Eliza, a beautiful Christian mulatto, shows her courage and love for her son. This love becomes strongest when she escapes with him to Canada after he's sold to pay debts. In the meantime, Tom is sold to Simon Legree. Simon displays evilness in his strength, greed and brutality. After Tom's friend escapes the plantation, Tom is blamed. The plot thickens when in Eliza's journey to Canada, she literally skates over thin ice as her son's master is close behind. Overall, the book was well written and the introduction omitted need for further research. Ms. Stowe is outstanding at exposing the severity of the slavery atmosphere without today's Hollywood gore. The historical accuracy is shown throughout the novel as The Fugitive Slave Law is mentioned and Harriet provides parallels between actual people and the story's characters. However, as the introduction states, Stowe claims both that slavery is evil for exaggerating differences between races and denying similarities. Overall Stowe is noteworthy and her book should be read because it influenced attitudes towards slavery, and embeds historical events interestingly.

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Uncle Tom's Cabin (Large Print)
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Manufacturer: Echo Library
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ASIN: 1846373905

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This large print title is set in Tieras 16pt font as reccomended by the RNIB.

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Huge Help
This helped me immensely in graduate school
Read the book too!
Really Helped Me Out!

Uncle Tom's Cabin (Cliffs Notes)
Thomas Thornburg , and Mary Thornburg
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ASIN: 0764586777

Book Description

The original CliffsNotes study guides offer expert commentary on major themes, plots, characters, literary devices, and historical background. The latest generation of titles in this series also feature glossaries and visual elements that complement the classic, familiar format.

In CliffsNotes on Uncle Tom's Cabin, you discover Harriet Beecher Stowe's most memorable and socially relevant novel -- a book that, when published in 1852, galvanized public opinion against slavery in a way never seen before. The story follows the lives of two slaves: Eliza, who escapes slavery with her son, and Tom, who must endure humiliation, abuse, and torture inflicted by his owners.

This study guide takes you though Eliza and Tom's journeys by providing summaries and commentaries on each chapter of the novel. Critical essays give you insight into the major themes of the novel, as well as the novel's structure and Gothic elements. Other features that help you study include

Character analyses of the main characters
A character map that graphically illustrates the relationships among the characters
A section on the life and background of Harriet Beecher Stowe
A review section that tests your knowledge
A Resource Center full of books, articles, films, and Internet sites

Classic literature or modern modern-day treasure — you'll understand it all with expert information and insight from CliffsNotes study guides.

Download Description

When Abraham Lincoln met author Harriett Beecher Stowe, he is reported to have said, "So this is the little lady that started this big war!" Uncle Tom's Cabin is the seminal exploration and depiction of the atrocities that African Americans suffered as slaves in the pre-Civil War South. Tom is a Christ-like figure that is ultimately murdered, but not without first creating a love that helps all his fellow slaves. This book became a sort of Bible for the Abolitionists.

Customer Reviews:

Huge Help.......2005-02-17

Cliffnotes always help you get more out of the novel, but "krazy316," I can't believe you! How dare you abuse cliffnotes! The purpose of cliffnotes is to better understand what you have READ, not a cheap way to get out of reading good literature.
Anyway, cliffnotes is a great way to broaden your "knowledge" horizon. It explains who characters are, their relationships with one another, and the basic plot of each chapter. It's very helpful.

This helped me immensely in graduate school.......2005-01-14

Even though long before I had a bachelor's degree, let alone did graduate work on Stowe, I was recognized as an authoritative writer on issues of African American politics and history, I used these Cliff notes when I studied Uncle Tom in graduate school.
Uncle Tom is designed to be read as the sentimental and womens novel of the mid-19th Century it is were meant to be read, to be read in a torrent, in as close to one sitting, to be read to produce the torrent of emotions that it is meant to unleash. A 46-year-old African American political with long experience in real danger in political struggle, I wept when Uncle Tom died in this book, even though I was reading it for graduate school.
Using the cliff notes for this book allows you to read this properly as Stowe meant it to be, as her contemporaries meant it to be read, but to keep up with the details of all the characters and plot devices that literally range all over the United States with implications and discussions going around the globe.

I would also urge you to consult Eric J. Sundquist's book New Essays on Uncle Tom's Cabin (The American Novel) and Jane Tompkin's Sensational Designs. You can find an easy way to get to them by cliquing the see my reviews link next to my name.

Read the book too!.......2003-05-03

I remember using Cliff Notes in my high-school days to avoid extensive reading and yet to pass the tests/write the papers. However, when it comes to this specific book, I highly recommend that you actually READ this book for the personal benefits you'll get, and use the Cliff Notes for summary and a guide only. Some of the most powerful aspects of this book cannot possibly be obtained through the Cliff Notes version alone. It will be found shocking to many African Americans (and educational for many Caucasians) to discover that Uncle Tom was the HERO of this classic novel, and not a "weakling" by any stretch of the imagination. "Uncle Tom", or its shorter form "Tom", has become a slanderous term within the African American community and implies a weak and Caucasian-controlled person, when in actuality Uncle Tom was a powerfully moral man who was willing to die for his convictions rather than succumb to the will of his worst oppressors. In fact, this book was credited by Abraham Lincoln himself as the catalyst that won his election on the abolition of slavery platform, and the resulting Civil War that followed. "Uncle Tom" became a negative slander one hundred years later only after Malcolm-X and the Black Muslims used it to slander Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who exemplified similar characteristics of strength and courage--from a similarly peaceful perspective--in his approach to the Civil Rights issue. As with the fictitious character Tom, Dr. King also died for his convictions without raising a hand against his oppressors. I highly recommend this book to people of all colors and races because of the lessons of self-sacrifice and courage it contains. Caucasian readers will hopefully learn of the pain and suffering of the slaves and gain a deeper compassion for its lingering legacy today. However, I especially recommend Uncle Tom's Cabin to African Americans, for contained in its pages are stories of love, compassion and courage--by both black & white--that will offset the painful legacy of that period caused by the suffering of so many. May the ignorance of the "Uncle Tom" slander be eradicated from their minds as they read of the courage of this fictitious character--who reminded others of Dr. King himself--and the other characters whose struggles and triumphs are contained in its pages also. I also recommend the books: No Apology Necessary, by Earl Carter, Let's Get to Know Each Other, by Tony Evans, and my own book, which is-- White Man in a Black Man's World (tm), by Richard Vermillion.

Really Helped Me Out!.......2001-11-23

This book helped me pass my test with 100. I didn't even read the actual book "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The CliffsNotes version was enough. The book gives you character analyses and a background of the author in addition to a plot summary by chapter groups. I highly recommend this book if you don't want to read the actual novel.

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