HARRIET BEECHER STOWE began her writing career by writing pieces
for magazines to compliment her husbands' meager salary as a
professor. She won a short story prize from Western Monthly
Magazine, and in 1834, her short-story collection The
Mayflower was published. At this time, Stowe was living in
Cincinnati, Ohio, which was just across the river from the slave
trade and gave her the impetus to write Uncle Tom's Cabin.
In 1850, the family movied to Boston at the height of the public
furor over the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, which mandated the return
of runaway slaves already in the North to their owners. Stowe set
about writing a novel illustrating the moral responsibility of the
entire nation for the cruel system. She forwarded the first
episodes to the editor of the Washington anti-slavery weekly, The
National Era, where it was published it in 40 installments.
Although many Northerners considered slavery a political
institution for which they had no personal
responsibility, Uncle Tom's Cabin was becoming a national
sensation.
The episodes attracted the attention of Boston publisher, J. P.
Jewett, who published the work in March of 1852. Uncle Tom's
Cabin immediately broke all sales records of the day: selling
half-a-million copies by 1857. Stowe went on to many other literary
projects, producing about a book a year from 1862 to 1884, but she
is still most remembered as the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Gr 10 Up-Perry Keenlyside's abridged rendering of this classic tale adequately tells Harriet Beecher Stowe's antislavery story. Uncle Tom, a dignified and strong man, endures ownership by two men who treat him kindly: first by George Shelby who keeps Tom's family together until economics forces a sale, and second by Augustine St. Clare who comes to respect Tom's character and all he stands for. When Augustine dies, Tom is sold to the cruel Simon Legree. It is at Legree's farm that Tom dies as a result of one of his beatings. Although Tom suffered a wavering in his faith at the hands of Simon Legree, it is here that Tom has a religious reawakening and dies strong in his faith. In its condensed form, the religious aspects of the novel seem to be given added significance, but perhaps that is only right given the social climate out of which this novel was born. Liza Ross reads the story, assuming several voices for each of the different characters. In a few places, the reading of the tags describing a voice we just heard seems awkward and redundant. Overall, Ross's voice is a convincing one, able to engage even today's visually oriented students. A music interlude signals the break between chapters, a good stopping point for discussion.-Suzanne Goodman, Park High School, Livingston, MT Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
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