Beschreibung:

STOWE, Harriet Beecher (1811-1896). Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly . Boston: J. P. Jewett; Cleveland: Jewett, Proctor and Worthington, 1852.
STOWE, Harriet Beecher (1811-1896). Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly . Boston: J. P. Jewett; Cleveland: Jewett, Proctor and Worthington, 1852. 2 volumes, 8 o (192 x 120 mm). Title-page vignettes and six engraved plates. (Some occasional minor marginal staining.) Original brown cloth, front covers with vignette stamped in gilt, blind-stamped borders, gilt-lettered on spine (a few small chips at spine ends, small stain on front cover of volume one); brown quarter morocco slipcase. FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING (BAL's binding B) of Stowe's passionate anti-slavery novel. "Into the emotion-charged atmosphere of mid-nineteenth-century America Uncle Tom's Cabin exploded like a bombshell. To those engaged in fighting slavery it appeared as an indictment of all the evils inherent in the system they opposed; to the pro-slavery forces it was a slanderous attack on 'the Southern way of life' ... Whatever its weaknesses as a literary work -- structural looseness and excess of sentiment among them -- the social impact of Uncle Tom's Cabin on the United States was greater than that of any book before or since" ( PMM ). The work was first published as a serial in the abolitionist newspaper The National Era between 5 June 1851 and 1 April 1852. Intended as a series of sketches showing the evils of life under slavery, it soon assumed much broader dimensions. The first edition, published in two volumes, and bound either in black, purple, or brown cloth, in wrappers, or in an extra-gilt presentation binding, appeared on 20 March 1852. The first printing of 5,000 copies was exhausted in a few days, and by the end of the first year, more than 300,000 copies had been sold in America alone. BAL 19343; Grolier American 61; PMM 332.