Kindle 
5 Comments Uncle Tom’s Cabin: (A Modern Library E-Book)
An international bestseller that sold more than 300,000 copies when it first appeared in 1852, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was dismissed by some as abolitionist propaganda; yet Tolstoy deemed it a great work of literature ‘flowing from love of God and man.’
Today, however, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s stirring indictment of slavery if often confused with garish dramatizations that flourished for decades after the Civil War: productions that relied heavily on melodramatic simplifications of character totally alien to the original. Thus ‘Uncle Tom’ has become a pejorative term for a subservient black, whereas Uncle Tom in the book is a man who, under the most inhumane of circumstances, never loses his human dignity.
‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin is the most powerful and most enduring work of art ever written about American slavery,’ said Alfred Kazin.
Rating: 
(out of 16 reviews)
Price:
Review by Trevor Coote for Uncle Tom’s Cabin: (A Modern Library E-Book)
Rating:
Uncle Tom’s Cabin is one of the most important and popular novels in literary history. One hundred and fifty years on it remains as controversial as it was at the time of its publication and has spawned the term Uncle Tom to describe black people who are excessively meek and submissive in the face of racial abuse and prejudice. The debate today though is not about the morality of slavery, which is universally reviled, but instead focuses on whether or not the author inadvertently demeans and degrades the very people for whom she sought both dignity and liberation.
The novel begins in relatively liberal Kentucky in the home of a `liberal’ slave owner and his wife who are reluctantly forced to sell two of their slaves to an unscrupulous dealer due to severe financial difficulties. On hearing that her son is about to be sold, mulatto Eliza flees across a frozen river with her little boy and heads for free Canada with the aid of sympathetic Quakers, meeting up with her bitter, estranged husband along the way. In contrast, pious Tom accepts severance from his family and his fate at the slave auction with resigned docility and is fortunate at first to be reassigned to a family headed by another liberal-inclined slaver. It is here that we meet the golden-haired (of course) little angel Eva, daughter of Tom’s new master and his unsympathetic wife. Eva has bottomless compassion for Tom and the other slaves and servants and is adored in turn until she dies in one of the most saccharine death scenes in literature, reminiscent of the death of Bambi’s mother. Eva’s father promises his daughter on her deathbed that he would grant Tom his liberty but this promise is ignored by Eva’s mother after his death and Tom is resold to the theatrically evil dealer Legree.
If Uncle Tom’s Cabin did not contain scenes of emotional power and lyrical writing it would have been long-since forgotten. Despite Tom’s cringing servility and all the black characters being apparently trapped in some kind of evolutionary stasis, a moving sincerity flows throughout the book and the effect it had on the conscience of nineteenth century America cannot be overstated. However, the world has moved on (allegedly) and in the end, the cloying sentimentality and the disturbing notion that Congregationalist Christianity is the only means available for gaining the freedom and dignity of the gentle, saintly slaves and redeeming the souls of their corrupt masters become overwhelming.
Review by for Uncle Tom’s Cabin: (A Modern Library E-Book)
Rating:
Uncle Tom’s cabin is frequently criticized by people who have never read the work, myself included. I decided I finally needed to read it and judge it for myself. And I have to say, that for all its shortcomings (and it does have them), it is really a remarkable book. The standout characteristics of this book are the narrative drive (it’s a very exciting, hard to put down book), the vivid characters (I don’t know what other reviewers were reading, but I found the characters extremely vivid and mostly believable – exceptions to follow), the sprawling cast, the several completely different worlds that were masterfully portrayed, and the strong female characters in the book. The portrayal of slavery and its effects on families and on individuals is gut-wrenching – when Uncle Tom has to leave his family, and when Eliza may lose little Harry, one feels utterly desolate.As for flaws, yes, Mrs. Stowe does sermonize a fair bit, and her sentences and pronouncements can be smug. Yes, if you’re not a Christian, you may find all her Christian references a bit much. (But the majority of her readers claimed to be Christian, and it was her appeal to the spirit of Christ that was her most powerful tug at the emotions of her readers). Yes, she still had some stereotypical views of African-Americans (frankly, I think most people have stereotypical views of races other than their own, they just don’t state them as clearly today). But in her time, she went far beyond the efforts of most of her contemporaries to both see and portray her African-American brothers and sisters are equal to her. The best way she did this was in her multi-dimensional portrayal of her Negro characters — they are, in fact, more believable and more diverse than her white characters. Yes, at times her portrayal of Little Eva and Uncle Tom is overdone at times — they are a little cardboard in places — but both, Uncle Tom especially, are overall believable, and very inspiring. The rest of the Negro characters – George Harris, Eliza, Topsy, Cassie, Emmeline, Chloe, Jane and Sara, Mammy, Alphonse, Prue, and others, span the whole spectrum of humanity — they are vivid and real.The comments of a previous reviewer that the book actually justifies slavery (because “it says it’s no worse than capitalism”) and that it shows that Christianity defends slavery are due to sloppy reading of the book. No one reading the book could possibly come to the conclusion that it does anything but condemn slavery in the strongest and most indubitable terms. This was the point of the book. The aside about capitalism was just that, an aside on the evils of capitalism. It did not and does not negate the attack on slavery. Secondly, another major point of the book is that TRUE Christianity does not and could not ever support slavery. Stowe points out the Biblical references used to claim that Christianity defended slavery merely to show how the Bible can be misused by those who wish to defend their own indefensible viewpoint. It’s ridiculous to say that the book “shows that Christianity supported slavery”. It shows that some misguided preachers abused certain Bible passages and ignored other ones to support their view of slavery.There is an overlay of the tired “Victorian women’s novel” to this piece – that must be granted. For literary perfection, it will never take its place beside Tolstoy, Dickens and Austen. But it is a piece entirely of its own category. Nothing before or after it has been anything like it, and it IS a great, if flawed, novel. I highly recommend it. I give it 5 stars despite its flaws because it’s utterly unique, and its greatness is in some ways is related to its flaws.
Review by Nasir Javaid for Uncle Tom’s Cabin: (A Modern Library E-Book)
Rating:
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, is a fictional novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. A novel that eventually caused the outbreak of the great American civil war, and the novel that accomplished the Abolitionist in their mission of emancipation of captives, the slaves. A novel that made Stowe the most famous woman in literature, albeit the most controversial. Though it is a fictional novel, but Stowe insists that many parts of the novel are the excerpts from true accounts of slaves and fugitives. And that many similar parables were to be found in the slave states of America, at that time. Stowe, intially anticipated much less of the novel that it would just buy her a new dress, but, as the time unfolded, it escalated her to the heights of fame and controversy. At that time, it sold millions of the copies and made Stowe the most famous and wealthy writer of her era.
The novel is full of emotions and makes you get in their (slaves) shoes. I felt ecstatic when they were contented. I felt doleful when they are traumatised. A person so rigid like me, got his throat dry at some incidents. At the same time, makes you sympathetic towards them. The most distinguished hallmark of Stowe’s work is her mesmerising depiction of characters, places and situations. Very artistic, indeed! The novel is so full of emotions, that if you stab the book, it will bleed. Bleed with the pathetic accounts of fugitives, slaves and utter and gross discrimination of the blacks at that time. Moreover, the novel also points out the religious inclination of Stowe, after going through characters of little Eva and the Christ like, Uncle Tom at his death bed. Though the religious exaggeration at few places reaches the frontier of fakery.
Let it as it may be, I will, without a doubt, recommend this to any one who really wants to read an emotional and touching novel. According to my presumption, the children under the age of 15 may not feel the granduer of novel, as adults.
Review by J. Smit for Uncle Tom’s Cabin: (A Modern Library E-Book)
Rating:
My husband bought this from Amazon earlier this year. He was gripped by it and recommended I read it after him.
I’m glad I did as it is one of the best books I’ve read in years. Like much of the best American literature there’s an epic sense of scale – Scores of wonderfully rounded characters set in well described locations across a varied landscape. The storylines are wonderfully written and you’ll find it difficult not to think about the book’s themes when you have to put it down.
Although there are some god-fearing parts in the middle, these aren’t too intrusive and merely add flavour to the period in which it was written. It should be noted that not all of the ‘good’ characters are christian.
Although the book is far from a one-sided rant against slavery (some of the most likeable characters are slave owners) it’s easy to see how it was credited with starting the civil war. Anger wasn’t an emotion I’d expected from this book, but I felt it in spades.
Review by Mephistopheles for Uncle Tom’s Cabin: (A Modern Library E-Book)
Rating:
I really wanted to read this work as I’ve long has a conceptual knowledge of it and it’s importance in highlighting the plight of slavery in the Southern US states. I was quite disappointed to find the start so slow, and to feel less moved than I was expecting, but persisted and I am so glad that I did. This work is enormously rewarding, after about a third of the way through, it picks and pace and sentiment. While some claim it is over-pious, I would argue that St Clare’s religious doubt, yet innate goodness plays off nicely against Ophelia’s piety – whose clinical piety is in turn undermined my her inability to empathise with the slaves on a human level. Eva’s belief is in the redemption of Christ’s love that transcends race and underpins values of the novel. Pious indeed this book is, but it is not badly placed given the setting and beliefs of the time and the respresentations of faith and doubt are broader than Ophelia’s New England rigidity, or Marie’s tacit ‘Christianity’ as yet another token of being part of polite society. Religion aside, it preaches the more noble of Christian values: that everyone can reform and that all people are equal; ultimately it is what they do that distinguishes them. The turn of events are both wonderful and heartbreaking. This is a real masterpiece and for what it may lack sometimes in pace and style, it makes up with in heart, soul and conviction.