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STOWE, Harriet Beecher (1811-1896). Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly. Boston: J. P. Jewett; Cleveland: Jewett, Proctor and Worthington, 1852.
2 volumes, 8o. Title-page vignettes and six engraved plates. (Short marginal tears on 25/4 and 5 in vol. 1 and 9/4 in vol. 2, some slight creasing at gutter in vol. 2.) Original brown cloth, front covers with vignette stamped in gilt, blind-stamped borders, gilt-lettered on spine (a few small areas of rubbing, small repair at foot of spine on vol. 1); brown morocco pull-off cases. Provenance: Adeline Augusta Hall (contemporary ink inscriptions on free endpapers: "A. Augusta Halls, 25th birthday present from her Father and Mother" and with pencil date March 29th 1852."); Harold Greenhill (bookplate); H. Bradley Martin (bookplate; his sale Sotheby's New York, 31 January 1990, lot 2253).
FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING (BAL's binding B) of Stowe's passionate anti-slavery novel. "Into 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' ... Whatever its weaknesses as a literary work -- structural looseness and excess of sentiment among them -- the social impact of Uncle Tom's Cabin on the United States was greater than that of any book before or since" (PMM). BAL 19343; Grolier American 61; PMM 332; Sabin 92457. (2)
2 volumes, 8o. Title-page vignettes and six engraved plates. (Short marginal tears on 25/4 and 5 in vol. 1 and 9/4 in vol. 2, some slight creasing at gutter in vol. 2.) Original brown cloth, front covers with vignette stamped in gilt, blind-stamped borders, gilt-lettered on spine (a few small areas of rubbing, small repair at foot of spine on vol. 1); brown morocco pull-off cases. Provenance: Adeline Augusta Hall (contemporary ink inscriptions on free endpapers: "A. Augusta Halls, 25th birthday present from her Father and Mother" and with pencil date March 29th 1852."); Harold Greenhill (bookplate); H. Bradley Martin (bookplate; his sale Sotheby's New York, 31 January 1990, lot 2253).
FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING (BAL's binding B) of Stowe's passionate anti-slavery novel. "Into 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' ... Whatever its weaknesses as a literary work -- structural looseness and excess of sentiment among them -- the social impact of Uncle Tom's Cabin on the United States was greater than that of any book before or since" (PMM). BAL 19343; Grolier American 61; PMM 332; Sabin 92457. (2)