Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Illustrated watered-down version of the classic 1852 novel which Stowe wrote as an angry response to the 1850 passage of the second Fugitive Slave Act, which punished those who aided runaway slaves and diminished the rights of fugitives as well as freed slaves. It was the best-selling novel of the 19th century (and the second best-selling book of the century after the Bible) and is credited with helping to fuel the abolitionist cause in the United States prior to the American Civil War. When Stowe met Abraham Lincoln in 1862 (during the Civil War), he reportedly greeted her with, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!”