About this title: Harriet Beecher Stowe's powerful but sentimental and stereotyped anti-slavery novel, published in 1852, was an inspiration to the abolitionist cause.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Date Published: 1970-02-07
ISBN-13:9780060806187ISBN:0060806184
Description: Good. Good; paperback. Clean, tight, & bright, with no tears; some highlighting & owner stamp. From The Civil War Book Shop-As close as your computer; as dependable as old Abe. read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Signet Classics, E Rutherford, New Jersey, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9780451523020ISBN:0451523024
Description: Good. 0451523024 Mass market paperback, previously read used book in good condition, varying degrees of shelf wear, some spine creases, m..._ read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Bantam Classics
Date Published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780553212181ISBN:0553212184
Description: Acceptable. Overall below average used book. May have highlighting, underlining, notes, price sticker on cover, or be an ex-library book. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Signet Classics
Date Published: 1966
ISBN-13:9780451523020ISBN:0451523024
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Tight binding, little edge wear, clean pages are age-toned slightly. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 496 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Bantam Classics
Date Published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780553212181ISBN:0553212184
Description: A good reading copy only. A former library book with the usual identifiers. writting appear om the ooutter pages of book along with previous name from owner-, Mass Market PaperBack, Good / read more
"Harriet Beecher Stowe's famous novel was written witha specific purpose: to refute the common thinking of her time that slavery was acceptable because it was more often benficial than harmful.
Stowe's many tales of slaves and slave-owners, good, bad and in-between, are woven together as their lives intermingle, and show plainly and fairly all sides of the question as they existed in her day. And bring the reader, while moved with compassion for the oppressed, to the ineveitable conclusion of the evil of the entire system.
Themes of Christianity runeverywhere through the novel, giving hope to the victims and conviction to the oppressors, as well as to the silent observers.
I couldn't get the images of hopelessness out of my mind long after putting the book down. I highly reccommend it, but caution the reader that the 'n-word' appears quite often."
"Finally finished! Okay, so the writing wasn't always the best, and I could wish for a little more character development, but despite these I still have to give this book a 5. It was such an experience!
As an aside... I find fault with many of the serious criticisms of the novel. All most popular novels seem to undergo excessive criticism. We've seen a recent example in the Harry Potter controversy. They are wizards and witches and it's about magic, and therefore evil? We should forget all the moral tales and overarching good-triumphing-over-evil theme? Ridiculous. Uncle Tom's Cabin may have further spread stereotypes, so now it's a bad novel? We should forget that it was, rightly, a motivational force in hurrying along the abolitionist movement? Again, ridiculous. For that outcome, hurrah for it being sensationalist at the time. Attention and shock were needed then. And who can doubt that such evil characters did exist? We may be a free country now, but evil people still exist. Surly they existed (and with the force of the law to back them!) during the times of slavery. How can people take issue with Stowe's account, and her lack of direct experience, when the informed mind can easily imagine similar experiences happened many times over.
Anyway, I think the nay-sayers should place less emphasis on the ridiculous and more on the intention. There's an obvious reason this celebrated novel is such a force in classical American literature. Okay, I'm stepping down now. :)"
"I took up this book with dubious expectations. Even the title itself sounded like an unimaginative prologue to a maudlin tale from a haughty female. (In the final pages, the title is given meaning.) But it took only a few chapters before I realized that I was experiencing a true classic. The book has five virtues. One, it is a historic artifact, something from the distant past, describing events and thoughts experienced by people of another age, an age not so distant in chronological years, but of a vastly distant world, an age where somehow human bondage was an accepted part of the culture. Two, it has historic import-it is a book that was very influential in its time, and its power is evident from the passion with which the writer tells her story. Three, it is a well told story, exciting in its drama. Four, it is not mere storytelling, but is an impassioned moral and political essay. The message it delivered was urgent. Five, it is written with great literary skill. This is among the most eloquent prose I've read in some time. It was a pleasure to experience the well-formed sentence structure, the adroit vocabulary, the use of various dialects in the character dialogue, and the writer's command of the English language. Yet it was grounded enough in historic fact and message that the writing was not mere fanciful entertainment. There was only one point in the narrative that I thought slowed and lost some of its vigor. And, granted, the story had moments of incredulity and may not be a balanced portrayal of slave conditions. But these did not serve to significantly undermine of overall force of the work. My complements go to "the little woman who started the big war," as Lincoln called her."
"Wow. An important book, surely, historically, and I found the forward more interesting than most as it argued about the book's place in American Literature. (Though, sadly, like most academic forwards, rife with spoilers. Lady! I'm reading this for the first time, don't tell me who dies and who gets married and who goes to Africa!)
Stowe's strength is in her more merry passages, particularly when she can put her bible down for five seconds and turn a wry, Twain-like eye on popular culture. Sadly, these passages are too few and far between, drowning under gallons of preaching and an over-sentimentalized series of accounts that rob the actions of their innate horror. She did her homework, and the accounts of atrocities of slavery jive with those I've read in Frederick Douglas' autobiography, but I would recommend Douglas' work over hers twenty-to-one. It is more compassionate, more rooted in reality, and lest damn preachy.
Also, there are a few very very offensive passages that just made me gasp and want to look away..."
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