HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
(1811-1896)
91. Uncle Tom's Cabin; | Or, | Life Among The Lowly. | By | Harriet Beecher Stowe. | [Vignette] Vol. I. | Boston: | John P. Jewett & Company. | Cleveland, Ohio: | Jewett, Proctor & Worthington. | 1852.
The first chapter of Uncle Tom appeared June, 1851, in The National Era of Washington, a magazine edited by Gamaliel Bailey, and one of the ablest mediums of opinion of the anti-slavery party. It was finished in April, 1852. Mrs. Stowe received $300 for her labor.
The interest which the story awakened led John Punchard Jewett, a member of the first anti-slavery society in New England, and himself a frequent contributor to the newspapers on anti-slavery topics, to offer to bring it out immediately in book form, giving the author ten per cent. on the sales. The proposition was accepted, and the book was published March 20, 1852. The very remarkable sale of three thousand copies the first day was only an earnest of what was to happen. Over 300,000 copies were sold within the year, and eight power-presses running day and night could hardly supply the demand.
There is a vignette on the title-pages signed by the engravers, Baker-Smith, and each volume contains three unsigned plates, evidently by the same artist, and engraved by the same hands as the vignette. The volumes were bound in black with the vignette of the title-page stamped on the covers, the front impression being in gold.
Octavo.
Collation: Two volumes. Volume I: 312 pp. Volume II: 322 pp. Six plates.