STOWE, HARRIET BEECHER |Uncle Tom's Cabin: or, Life Among the Lowly, serialized in The National Era. Washington D. C.: G. Bailey, June 5, 1851–April 1, 1852

Property from the Eric C. Caren Collection

STOWE, HARRIET BEECHER

Uncle Tom's Cabin: or, Life Among the Lowly, serialized in The National Era. Washington D. C.: G. Bailey, June 5, 1851–April 1, 1852

Contained in 3 volumes, large folio (25 1/2 x 18 in.; 650 x 458 mm, & slightly smaller), of The National Era, comprising Vol. III, No. 133 (July 19, 1849) to Vol. VII, No. 365 (December 29, 1953), many issues with subscribers’ names, including E. F. Bailly of Fitchburg, Massachusetts; lacking one issue of the serialization (Whole No. 266, from February 5, 1852), which was evidently never part of the bound volume, and a few scattered non-Uncle Tom’s Cabin issues, scattered tears and browning throughout. Near-uniform nineteenth-century calf-backed marbled boards; rubbed, some repair to spines, second volume more worn, rather shaken, and with some issues evidently supplied from elsewhere. The consignor has independently obtained a letter of authenticity from PSA that will accompany the lot.

The first appearance of Uncle Tom's Cabin, perhaps the most influential novel in American history: "In the emotion-charged atmosphere of mid-nineteenth-century America, Uncle Tom's Cabin exploded like a bombshell. … The social impact of Uncle Tom's Cabin on the United States was greater than that of any book before or since" (Printing and the Mind of Man 332).

The present copy of the novel is particularly interesting for being preserved in a long run of The National Era, a highly significant abolitionist newspaper, so that the times and context of Mrs. Stowe's can be readily appreciated. The run also includes the issue of May 8, 1851, in which Gamaliel Bailey, the Era's publisher and editor, announced the impending publication of Stowe's "new story," then tentatively and poignantly titled "Uncle Tom's Cabin, or the Man that was a Thing."

According to the University of Virginia's online edition of the National Era text (which differs significantly from the first book publication), the Era added nearly 5,000 new subscribers during the serialization. It is estimated that from a run of 15,000 to 19,000 copies of the individual issues, fewer than thirty complete runs of paper copy issues that include Uncle Tom's Cabin survive, mostly in institutions.