2014 USA Fiction Challenge: Kentucky

The next stop on the 2014 USA Fiction Challenge is the state of Kentucky.

Presenting

Uncle Tom's Cabin

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Helped lay the groundwork for the American Civil War

 

The best-selling novel of the 19th century and the second best-selling book of that century, following the Bible. It is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause in the 1850s. In the first year after it was published, 300,000 copies of the book were sold in the United States and one million copies were sold in Great Britain.

Having run up large debts, a Kentucky farmer named Arthur Shelby faces the prospect of losing everything he owns. Though he and his wife, Emily Shelby, have a kindhearted and affectionate relationship with their slaves, Shelby decides to raise money by selling two of his slaves to Mr. Haley, a coarse slave trader. The slaves in question are Uncle Tom, a middle-aged man with a wife and children on the farm, and Harry, the young son of Mrs. Shelby’s maid Eliza. When Shelby tells his wife about his agreement with Haley, she is appalled because she has promised Eliza that Shelby would not sell her son.

The Films

1927 (Silent)

 Directed by Harry Pollard

Cast

Margarita Fischer - Eliza
James B. Lowe - Uncle Tom
Arthur Edmund Carewe - George Harris
George Siegmann - Simon Legree
Eulalie Jensen - Cassie
Mona Ray - Topsy
Virginia Grey - Eva St. Clare
Lassie Lou Ahern - Little Harry
Lucien Littlefield - Lawyer Marks

Jack Mower - Mr. Shelby
Vivien Oakland - Mrs. Shelby

 

1987

 Directed by Stan Lathan

Cast

Avery Brooks as Uncle Tom

 Phylicia Rashad as Eliza

 Edward Woodward as Simon Legree

,Jenny Lewis as Evangeline 'Little Eva' St. Claire

Samuel L. Jackson as George

Endyia Kinney as Topsy 

Kate Burton as Ophelia

Bruce Dern as Augustine St. Claire

George Coe as Mr. Shelby

Printing History

Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)

First appeared as a 40-week serial in The National Era, 

an abolitionist periodical, starting on June 5, 1851

Six full-page illustrations by Hammatt Billings engraved for the first printing. 

Published in book form on March 20, 1852