"TRUST IN THE LORD AND DO GOOD": FIRST ISSUE OF UNCLE TOM'S CABIN IN SCARCE ORIGINAL CLOTH, WITH SIGNED AUTOGRAPH NOTE
STOWE, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom's Cabin; or Life Among the Lowly. Boston and Cleveland:John P. Jewett / Jewett, Proctor & Worthington, 1852. Two volumes. Small octavo, publisher's blind and gilt stamped brown cloth rebacked with original spines laid down. Housed in a custom clamshell box.
First edition, first issue, of this enormously influential novel, in original cloth binding. Laid-in is a small card inscribed by Stowe: "Trust in the Lord / and / Do good / Harriet Beecher Stowe / Sept. 18, 1891."
Uncle Tom's Cabin was immediately successful upon its publication in book form. The first printing sold out in a few days, and within a year sales had reached the three hundred thousand mark; the novel was translated into twenty-five languages. "Within a decade after its publication Uncle Tom's Cabin had become the most popular novel ever written by an American… there is substantial evidence that the book precipitated the American Civil War" (Downs, Books That Changed America, 108). "In 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'… the social impact of [the novel] on the United States was greater than that of any book before or since" (PMM 332). First issue, with all seven first state points in Vol. I and all eleven first state points in Vol. II. Binding B (no priority established). BAL 19343. Grolier English 100, 91. Grolier American 100, 61. Contemporary owner signatures.
Text with occasional light embrowning, far less than usual. Expert restoration to extremities of original cloth bindings, gilt fine and bright. A near-fine copy of this American classic.