Harriet Beecher Stowe: Uncle Tom's Cabin

Harriet Beecher Stowe: Uncle Tom's Cabin

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) is a renowned American author.

Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1851) gained widespread popularity; within the first ten years of its initial publication, it was translated into 22 languages and became the second best-selling book in the world, surpassed only by the Bible.

The novel depicts the hardships faced by Black people in mid-19th-century America. Its realistic portrayal of the horrors of slavery exposes its inhumanity and demonstrates the urgent need for its abolition.

This unabridged text in the original language is complete with commentary and a glossary.
 

In Which the Reader Is Introduced to a Man of Humanity

Late in the afternoon of a chilly day in February, two gentlemen were sitting alone over their wine, in a well-furnished dining parlor, in the town of P—, in Kentucky. There were no servants present, and the gentlemen, with chairs closely approaching, seemed to be discussing some subject with great earnestness.

For convenience sake, we have said, hitherto, two gentlemen. One of the parties, however, when critically examined, did not seem, strictly speaking, to come under the species. He was a short, thick-set man, with coarse, commonplace features, and that swaggering air of pretension which marks a low man who is trying to elbow his way upward in the world. He was much over-dressed, in a gaudy vest of many colors, a blue neckerchief, bedropped gayly with yellow spots, and arranged with a flaunting tie, quite in keeping with the general air of the man. His hands, large and coarse, were plentifully bedecked with rings; and he wore a heavy gold watch-chain, with a bundle of seals of portentous size, and a great variety of colors, attached