Uncle Tom's Cabin

Tom lebt auf einer Baumwollplantage im Süden Amerikas. Er wird als Sklave gehalten und hat keinerlei Rechte. Als er eines Tages von seinem Herrn verkauft wird, wird seine Familie auseinandergerissen und für Tom beginnt eine schwere Zeit. Die kleine Tochter Eva seines neuen Herrn unterscheidet nicht zwischen Schwarzen und Weißen, doch für Onkel Tom wird es nur eine kurze Zeit sein, in der er wie ein Mensch behandelt wird.

The first American novel to become an international best-seller, Stowe's book charts the paths from slavery to freedom of fugitives who escape the chains of American chattel slavery, and of a martyr who transcends all earthly ties.

This edition firmly locates Uncle Tom's Cabin within the context of African-American writing, the issues of race and the role of women. Its introduction discusses African responses to Stowe's novel over the last century and a half and its appendices include excerpts from popular slave narratives, Stowe's `The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin', and Frederick Douglass's response to Stowe's model of black martyrdom.

`So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!'

These words, said to have been uttered by Abraham Lincoln, signal the celebrity of Uncle Tom's Cabin. The first American novel to become an international best-seller, Stowe's novel charts the progress from slavery to freedom of fugitives who escape the chains of American chattel slavery, and of a martyr who transcends all earthly ties. At the middle of the nineteenth-century, the names of its characters - Little Eva, Topsy, Uncle Tom - were renowned. A hundred years later, `Uncle Tom' still had meaning, but, to Blacks everywhere it had become a curse.

This edition firmly locates Uncle Tom's Cabin within the context of African-American writing, the issues of race and the role of women. Its appendices include the most important contemporary African-American literary responses to the glorification of Uncle Tom's Christian resignation as well as excerpts from popular slave narratives, quoted b y Stowe in her justification of the dramatization of slavery, Key to Uncles Tom's Cabin.

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Inhaltsverzeichnis:

Includes:
Introduction
Textual Note
Bibliography
Chronology
Map
Explanatory Notes
Appendices