Uncle Tom’s Cabin | Summary, Date, & Significance | Britannica (2025)

Uncle Tom’s Cabin, novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe, published in serialized form in the United States in 1851–52 and in book form in 1852. An abolitionist novel, it achieved wide popularity, particularly among white readers in the North, by vividly dramatizing the experience of slavery.

Summary

Uncle Tom’s Cabin tells the story of Uncle Tom, an enslaved person, depicted as saintly and dignified, noble and steadfast in his beliefs. While being transported by boat to auction in New Orleans, Tom saves the life of Little Eva, an angelic and forgiving young girl, whose grateful father then purchases Tom. Eva and Tom soon become great friends. Always frail, Eva’s health begins to decline rapidly, and on her deathbed she asks her father to free all his enslaved people. He makes plans to do so but is then killed, and the brutal Simon Legree, Tom’s new owner, has Tom whipped to death after he refuses to divulge the whereabouts of certain escaped slaves. Tom maintains a steadfastly Christian attitude toward his own suffering, and Stowe imbues Tom’s death with echoes of Christ’s.

Simon Legree, the principal villain in the story, represents greed and brutality, a man who chose sin over reform. Legree forces enslaved persons into different roles in his life. A woman named Cassy is forced to live with him. When Legree buys Tom, he also buys a 15-year-old girl named Emmeline, whom he intends to keep as a replacement for Cassy. Through punishment and reward, Legree turns Quimbo and Sambo into his companions and enforcers. The two men are coerced into beating other enslaved people at Legree’s command. It is Quimbo and Sambo who whip Tom to his death; as Tom lay dying, they express remorse and shame. Tom forgives them before he dies.

Reception and adaptations

Uncle Tom’s Cabin was an immediate sensation and was taken up eagerly by abolitionists in the North, while, along with its author, it was vehemently denounced in the South, where reading or possessing the book became an extremely dangerous enterprise. Nonetheless, some 300,000 copies of Uncle Tom’s Cabin were sold in the United States during the year after its publication, and it also sold well in England. Stowe was enthusiastically received on a visit to England in 1853, and there she formed friendships with many leading literary figures. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was adapted for theatre multiple times beginning in 1852; because the novel made use of the themes and techniques of theatrical melodrama popular at the time, its transition to the stage was easy. These adaptations played to capacity audiences in the United States and contributed to the already significant popularity of Stowe’s novel in the North and the animosity toward it in the South. They became a staple of touring companies through the rest of the 19th century and into the 20th.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin later was adapted to film, beginning in the silent film era in the first part of the 20th century. The popularity of the story at that time meant that it was easier for audiences to understand. Later attempts at film production in English failed due to protests against race-based discrimination, although it eventually was adapted as a made-for-television drama in the 1980s. The story also was adapted to film in other languages, including German, and was recreated in various animated productions, including cartoons produced by Walt Disney and Warner Brothers.