718 



STOWE, HARRIET BEECHER. 



and one of them said : " mamma, slavery is the 

 most cursed thing in the world ! " From that time 

 the book seemed to take its own way in her mind 

 atid heart. Scene after scene, incident after inci- 

 dent, seemed ready for her pen. The writing was 

 done during the morning, at a little desk in the 

 dining room of the Brunswick house. No distrac- 

 tions and they were serious and constant were 

 powerful enough to call her mind away from her 

 creation. At evening the day's installment was 

 read to the family, and the intense feeling it called 

 forth proved to be a precursor of the fortune that 

 awaited the most dramatic and fervent presentation 

 that ever has been made of a great moral cause and 

 purpose. When the first chapters were written 

 Mrs. Stowe wrote to Dr. Bailey, and offered it to 

 him as a serial for " The National Era." He at once 

 accepted it, and for nine months it ran in the paper, 

 rousing but little interest beyond the small circle 

 of the journal's subscribers. Before it was con- 

 cluded John P. Jewett, of Boston, a young and un- 

 known publisher (who was a member of the Anti- 

 slavery Society and had written newspaper articles 

 on the subject), applied for the opportunity to pro- 

 duce it in book form. The request was complied 

 with ; but as the story ran on he became alarmed 

 at its length, and wrote to Mrs. Stowe that it should 

 be shaped to proper proportions for a one-volume 

 novel. She replied that she was not making the 

 story, it was making itself, and she seemed to have 

 no power to curtail or enlarge. Mr. Jewett hesi- 

 tated, but he gave the manuscript to a man in whom 

 he had great confidence, and on his report that he 

 had sat up all night because he was unable to lay 

 the book aside, he concluded to risk the length. 

 Mrs. Stowe had written much with a view to eking 

 out the slender family income, but of " Uncle Tom " 

 as a business venture she had not thought at all. 

 It was her contribution to the moral and religious 

 life and progress of her beloved land and its inhab- 

 itants. It was a " strong crying " to the God of 

 nations to release a race from bondage. When it 

 was elided the reaction and revulsion of feeling 

 was in proportion to the height and strain of the 

 achievement. She sank into a despondent mood, in 

 which she believed herself to have failed of her pur- 

 pose, and fancied that nothing could stay the tide. 

 Indeed, this feel ing overtook her when the essential 

 moral work was done, and the closing scenes of the 

 novel bear witness to the mental fatigue in which 

 the perfunctory work of " winding up " the tale was 

 done. The story of Uncle Tom was to have its 

 real completion in seas of the blood of her own 

 countrymen and friends. 



Great surprises awaited her. The first was in the 

 immediate and tremendous success of the novel in 

 book form. It was published on March 20, 1852, 

 and 3,000 copies were sold the first day. Within a 

 few days 10,000 had been called for, and on April 1 a 

 second edition went to press. Prom that time eight 

 presses, running day and night, could not keep pace 

 with the demand. Within a year, 300,000 copies 

 had been sold. The friends of the slave system im- 

 mediately recognized its danger, and there was 

 bitter denunciation of the book. Mrs. Stowe had 

 pictured the slaveholder as capable of the highest 

 virtue and loveliness of character, as the victim of 

 circumstances that long preceded his birth ; she had 

 shown the pleasant side of slavery, and also that it 

 had another and terrible side. The second great 

 surprise for Mrs. Stowe was in the matter of money. 

 Four months after the appearance of the book Prof. 

 Stowe went into the publisher's office. " How much 

 does Mrs. Stowe expect? " asked Mr. Jewett. " She 

 hopes for enough to buy a new silk dress," was 

 the answer. He was give'n a check for $10,000. 



The success of the book in England was as great 



as in the United States. In the first week of its 

 appearance there, in April, 7,000 copies were sold. 

 By July it was being called for at the rate of 

 1,000 a week, and at the end of August the demand 

 was so great that 400 people were busy prepar- 

 ing it, 17 printing machines, besides hand presses, 

 being in use. Within a year 18 different London 

 houses were publishing itj at all manner of prices. 

 From April to December, 1852, 12 different editions 

 not reissues were published. Mr. Sampson Low, 

 the London publisher, said : " I am able pretty con- 

 fidently to say that the aggregate number of copies 

 circulated in Great Britain and the colonies exceeds 

 1,500,000." 



Mrs. Stowe sent copies, accompanied by personal 

 letters that pleaded the slave's cause, to Macaulay, 

 Dickens, the Earl of Carlisle, Prince Albert, Charles 

 Kingslcy. and the Earl of Shaftesbury. Macaulay's 

 brief letter of acknowledgment suggests what had 

 been shown before, that the great writer who knew 

 English history so well had no interest in American 

 affairs. He said: "I sincerely thank you for the 

 volumes which you have done me the honor to send 

 me. I have read them I can not say with pleas- 

 ure, but with high respect for the talents and for 

 the benevolence of the writer." Dickens wrote: 

 "I have read your book with the deepest interest 

 and sympathy, and admire, more than I can ex- 

 press to you both the generous feeling which inspired 

 it and the admirable power with which it is exe- 

 cuted. If I might suggest a fault in what has so 

 charmed me, it would be that you go too far and 

 seek to prove too much. The wrongs and atrocities 

 of slavery are, God knows ! case enough. I doubt 

 there being any warrant for making out the Afri- 

 can race to be a great race, or for supposing the fu- 

 ture destinies of the world to lie in that direction; 

 and I think this extreme championship likely to 

 repel some useful sympathy and support." Lord 

 Carlisle wrote : " I have allowed some time to 

 elapse before I thanked you for the great honor 

 and kindness you did me in sending to me from 

 yourself a copy of ' Uncle Tom's Cabin.' I thought 

 it clue to the subject of which I perceived that it 

 treated not to send a mere acknowledgment. It is 

 not in the stiff and conventional form of compli- 

 ment, still less in the technical language of criti- 

 cism, that I am about to speak of your work. I re- 

 turn my deep and solemn thanks to Almighty God, 

 who has led and enabled you to write such a book. 

 I do feel, indeed, the most thorough assurance that, 

 in his good providence, such a book can not have 

 been written in vain. I have long felt that slavery 

 is by far the topping question of the world and age 

 we live in, including all that is most thrilling in 

 heroism and most touching in distress in short, 

 the real epic of the universe. The self-interest of 

 the parties most nearly concerned on the one hand, 

 the apathy and ignorance of unconcerned observers 

 on the other, have left these august pretensions to 

 drop very much out of sight, and hence my rejoic- 

 ing that a writer has appeared who will be read 

 and must be felt, and that, happen what may to 

 the transactions of slavery, they will no longer be 

 suppressed. No one can know so well as you how 

 much the external appearance of the negro detracts 

 from the romance and sentiment which undoubted- 

 ly might attach to his position and to his wrongs ; 

 and on this account it does seem to me proportion- 

 ately important that you should have brought to 

 your portraiture great grace of style, great power of 

 language, a play of humor which relieves and light- 

 ens even the dark depth of the background which 

 you were called upon to reveal, a force of pathos 

 which, to give it the highest praise, does not lag be- 

 hind all the dread reality, and, above all, a variety, 

 a discrimination, and a truth in the delineation of 



