Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852) Illu.

Yes I am reading it; I don't think anyone reads this anymore and after a few chapters it's not hard to understand why. By the end of the 1st chapter you know which side the bread is buttered on. I love the segmented or scene like writing; neat little packages as a result of the original releases in periodical installments.

It's such and old topic I suppose that it is tiring for most people in the States to get into, however, after finishing Gone with the Wind and re-reading The Red Badge,  I felt it was a must to round out the period.

Now I understand that these two books are polar opposites and that GwtW was probably written to give "the other side of the story." So we claim to be in a "polarized" period now, HA, imagine how polarized things have to be to lead to civil war! I hear lots of people say it's coming again but that's bullshit; you can't make overfed people on cell phones get out of there house let alone go to uprising.

I love this 1938 printing with lots of etchings in it. It has possibly the heaviest paper weight I have ever seen in a book; it feels great in your hands.In near perfect condition my copy is a pleasure to hold.



My new book collecting philosophy is to get illustrated copies whenever possible.

Stowe is a master at making a situation have all sides and emotions represented simultaneously. Occasionally Stowe speaks directly to the reader challenging all comers to reflect on the issue. In other instances it literally hurts to read some of it; Harriet knows how string you along in a most painful way at times.

Both of these books have helped me understand and come to piece with the "cards that we are dealt" theory of life. The deck of cards that we are playing from are forged in our time and place. The earlier one sees and (if possible) can separate themselves from becoming the time and place, I think, the better off. 

The amazing raw truthfulness of what was most likely unsaid back in the day is in chapter 16; like a slap in the face. As spoken by Mr. St Clair "you loathe them like a snake or a toad, you are indignant at their wrongs. You would not have them abused; but you don't want to have anything to do with them yourselves. " So Mrs. Stowe lays out it plainly, holding no punches aimed at the North.
Mr. St Clair also states: "We're in for it; we've got 'em and we mean to keep 'em - it's for convenience and our interest."

Mr. St Clair is Stowe's Rett Buttler; that is a mouth piece for trowing punches both at the North and the South. "Now as an aristocrat, you know, the world over, has no human sympathies, beyond a certain line in society. In England the line is in one place, in Burma another, in American another; but the aristocrat in all these countries never goes over it. What would be hardship and distress in his own class, is a cool matter of course in another.
From Miss Ophelia comes one of the most powerful lines in the book. In the context of Eva's dying: "Augustine!has not God a right to do what he will with his own?" I guess I have never heard this line before and as an anti religious believer in God I think it is a most universal question.