Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Category Literature & Fiction Classics
Format Paperback
Imprint Rupa
Price 195

ISBN: 978-93-5304-943-0
Pages: 280 pages
Date: 20 November 2018

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Having run up large debts, Arthur Shelby, a Kentucky farmer, is on the verge of losing everything he owns. In this desperate hour, he decides to sell two of his slaves to raise money, despite his family having affectionate relationships with those two, to Mr Haley, a coarse slave trader. The slaves in question are Uncle Tom, a middle-aged man and Harry, the young son of Mrs Shelby’s maid, Eliza. When Mrs Shelby finds out about the arrangement, she is appalled because she has promised Eliza that her son would not be sold under any circumstances.

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s ground-breaking novel was first published in 1852. It was meant as an outcry against slavery. Her book speaks volumes about the inhumane treatment and racist misperceptions that was meted out to thousands of slaves at the time. On its publication, the book was an immediate bestseller and was second only to the Bible.

AUTHOR OF THE BOOK

Harriet Beecher Stowe, author and social activist, was born on 14 June 1811 in Litchfield, Connecticut, USA. She achieved national fame for her moving anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which fanned the flames of sectionalism before the Civil War. At that time, her book was banned in the proslavery Southern states in the US.

Stowe died in Hartford, Connecticut, on 1 July 1896.