“THE SOCIAL IMPACT… WAS GREATER THAN THAT OF ANY BOOK BEFORE OR SINCE”: EARLY ILLUSTRATED ENGLISH EDITION OF UNCLE TOM’S CABIN

STOWE, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Negro Life in the Slave States of America. London: C.H. Clarke, 1852. Octavo, later three-quarter brown calf, raised bands, black morocco spine label. $400.

Early Clarke edition—the "People's Illustrated Edition"—of this influential novel, with 50 illustrations, issued the same year as the first English edition (un-illustrated), also published by Clarke.

Uncle Tom's Cabin was immediately successful upon its publication in book form, and publishers in England, where there was a large and vocal anti-slavery contingent, were quick to issue their own editions of the controversial novel. This is an early Clarke printing, issued the same year as the true first English edition, also published by Clarke (sometimes confused with the 1852 Cassell printing with the 27 Cruikshank engravings). This edition contains 380 pages and 50 illustrations, rather than 329 pages in the first un-illustrated Clarke printing. Clarke also produced a 351-page edition with eight engravings and a 380-page edition with 40 engravings, both also in 1852, to say nothing of the dozen or so pirated editions that appeared this same year. Although the plate list includes only 40 plates, this copy has an additional eight plates throughout the text in addition to a frontispiece and a vignette title page, for a total of 50 plates. "In the emotion-charged atmosphere of mid-19th 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). BAL 19518. See Grolier English 100, 91 and Grolier American 100, 61.

Scattered foxing to plates and text, expert reinforcement to joints of handsome binding.