Learn about the history of Harriet Beecher Stowe, a formidable woman whose actions and works influenced the Civil War, one of the most life-changing times in the history of the United States, and a movement that divided a nation.

"Up to this year I have always felt that I had no particular call to meddle with this subject....But I feel now that the time is come when even a woman or a child who can speak a word for freedom and humanity is bound to speak." Thus did Harriet Beecher Stowe announce her decision to begin work on what would become one of the most influential novels ever written. The subject she had hesitated to "meddle with" was slavery, and the novel, of course, was Uncle Tom's Cabin. Still debated today for its portrayal of African Americans and its unresolved place in the literary canon, Stowe's best-known work was first published in weekly installments from June 5, 1851 to April 1, 1852. It caused such a stir in both the North and South, and even in Great Britain, that when Stowe met President Lincoln in 1862 he is said to have greeted her with the words, "So you are the little woman who wrote the book that created this great war!" In this landmark book, the first full-scale biography of Harriet Beecher Stowe in over fifty years, Joan D. Hedrick tells the absorbing story of this gifted, complex, and contradictory woman. Hedrick takes readers into the multilayered world of nineteenth century morals and mores, exploring the influence of then-popular ideas of "true womanhood" on Stowe's upbringing as a member of the outspoken Beecher clan, and her eventful life as a writer and shaper of public opinion who was also a mother of seven. It offers a lively record of the flourishing parlor societies that launched and sustained Stowe throughout the 44 years of her career, and the harsh physical realities that governed so many women's lives. The epidemics, high infant mortality, and often disastrous medical practices of the day are portrayed in moving detail, against the backdrop of western expansion, and the great social upheaval accompanying the abolitionist movement and the entry of women into public life. Here are Stowe's public triumphs, both before and after the Civil War, and the private tragedies that included the death of her adored eighteen month old son, the drowning of another son, and the alcohol and morphine addictions of two of her other children. The daughter, sister, and wife of prominent ministers, Stowe channeled her anguish and her ambition into a socially acceptable anger on behalf of others, transforming her private experience into powerful narratives that moved a nation. Magisterial in its breadth and rich in detail, this definitive portrait explores the full measure of Harriet Beecher Stowe's life, and her contribution to American literature. Perceptive and engaging, it illuminates the career of a major writer during the transition of literature from an amateur pastime to a profession, and offers a fascinating look at the pains, pleasures, and accomplishments of women's lives in the last century.

"Describes the life and times of author Harriet Beecher Stowe, best known for her book Uncle Tom's Cabin"--

Describes the life of a nineteenth-century author whose anti-slavery novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" helped intensify the disagreement between North and South.

Harriet Beecher Stowe is often credited with bringing such attention to the plight of slaves in her most famous novel that she influenced the course of the American Civil War. In this text, Stowe’s work as an abolitionist and author is examined in light of its great historical significance. Students will analyze the importance of Stowe’s work in its contemporary historical context.

Examines the life of the nineteenth-century author famous for the novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin," which denounced slavery and intensified the disagreement between the North and South.

Through the publication of her bestseller Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe became one of the most internationally famous and important authors in nineteenth-century America. Today, her reputation is more complex, and Uncle Tom's Cabin has been debated and analysed in many different ways. This book provides a summary of Stowe's life and her long career as a professional author, as well as an overview of her writings in several different genres. Synthesizing scholarship from a range of perspectives, the book positions Stowe's work within the larger framework of nineteenth-century culture and attitudes about race, slavery and the role of women in society. Sarah Robbins also offers reading suggestions for further study. This introduction provides students of Stowe with a richly informed and accessible introduction to this fascinating author.

General for the Series: The Casebooks in Criticism introduce readers to the essential criticism on landmark works of literature and film. For each volume, a distinguished scholar who is an authority on the text has collected the most elucidating and distinctive scholarly essays on that work and added key supporting materials. Each volume includes a substantial introduction which considers the key features of the work, describes its publication history, and contextualizes its cultural import and contemporary reputation while also surveying the major approaches which have informed the works critical history. A condensed bibliography offers suggestions for further reading. The compact volumes provide a critical survey and suggest provocative ways to engage with their texts. They are ideally suited to those interested in developing a deeper understanding of a works history and significance. Specific for this book: Most of the best criticism on Stowe's landmark novel is fairly recent. Until the combined impact of the civil rights and women's movements changed the focus of the academic ciriculum, Uncle Tom's Cabin seldom appeared in classrooms or as the subject of published scholarship. However, from the mid-1970 forward, the book has been widely written about and taught. Today, Uncle Toms Cabin is a stable, important part of the nineteenth-centruy American literature canon and has generated a rich body of new critical work. This casebook collects the best of the new scholarship as well as the most influential older essays. Included in this volume are letters by Harriet Beecher Stowe and articles by James Baldwin, Leslie Fiedler, Jane Tompkins, Gillian Brown, Robert Stepto, and Elizabeth Ammons.

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s popular book Uncle Tom’s Cabin had a huge effect on the abolitionist movement. Learn more in this book complete with timeline, primary sources, photographs, and excerpts from the time period.

This book explores the challenges of cross-cultural translation of American literary works into Arabic which, I argue, have prevented many nineteenth-century literary works from being translated into Arabic. I have used the Arabic translations of Harriet Beecher Stowe‘s "Uncle Tom’s Cabin"> and an abridged English text accompanying one of the translations as a case study. Since most of the Arabic translations of English and especially American literary works are merely linguistic oriented ones, I reinforce the importance of adopting a period-specific cultural-oriented approach that maintains the cultural context of American literary works, including the historical, cultural, religious, geopolitical, and gender-based elements, during the literary translation into the Arabic culture. I start with discussing the internationalization of American works and the importance of a cultural reading of these works. Reviewing many translations of English and American works in general, I categorize the challenges of cross-cultural literary translation from English into Arabic into the following: cultural, religious, geopolitical, and gender-based ones. While I am not calling for accurate cross-cultural literary translations since it is impossible, however, I am advocating for faithful translations which maintain the literary text‘s cultural and historical contexts. The accuracy of a literary translation depends on the amount of linguistic skill a translator has while the faithfulness of a literary translation is based upon the translator‘s sincere effort to include the literary text‘s entire cultural context including the historical, cultural, religious, geopolitical, and gender-based elements. Using Uncle Tom’s Cabin as a case study, I discuss how the previous challenges had negatively affected the translation process of the work. Despite the fact the work has been translated seven times into Arabic, due to the linguistic-oriented approach, the historical and cultural significance of Stowe‘s novel has not yet been introduced to Arab readers through translation. Due to the current era of globalization that demands individuals to have multicultural knowledge and understanding and due to the recent cultural and translation projects of literary works from English into Arabic, this book reinforces the importance and possibility of addressing the cultural, religious, geopolitical, and gender-based challenges while using "Uncle Tom’s Cabin" as an example.