The Annotated Uncle Tom's Cabin
- Feb 2, 2020
- 2 min read
★★★☆☆
It is impossible to underestimate the impact Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel had on attitudes and opinions towards slavery upon its publication in 1852. And, as the first widely-read political novel in the United States, it is also impossible to underestimate its influence on both American literature generally and protest literature specifically. Despite this undisputed significance—as you might expect of a novel as wildly popular (it was, after the Bible, the second-best-selling book of the 19th century) and as unabashedly political—Uncle Tom’s Cabin has suffered more than its fair share of criticism from all corners over the ensuing century and a half.
With introductions and notes by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Hollis Robbins, The Annotated Uncle Tom’s Cabin, attempts to reframe, recontextualize, and reappraise the book for modern readers. Having never read Uncle Tom’s Cabin before, and lacking any prior awareness of James Baldwin’s 1955 condemnation of it as worthless and dehumanizing, I’m not sure how much I needed 37 pages refuting Baldwin’s conclusions and explaining how he got it all wrong. The annotations were largely welcome, though I did find them to be frequently unnecessary and occasionally obnoxious. What is excellent about this edition, however, is the abundance of images—woodcuts, illustrations, advertisements, cartoons, rare prints, posters, paintings, photographs, and movie stills—spanning the entire published history of the book that show the pervasive influence it’s had on American history and popular culture.
And what of the story itself? Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a decidedly uneven affair: at times gripping, lyrical, heartbreaking; at others, overbearing, tedious, and melodramatic. It is, of course, unquestionably preachy (as protest literature is bound to be), and while a stronger editorial hand may have done Stowe some good, I fear it would have come at the expense of the story’s ambitious scope and its utter immediacy. After all, the story originally appeared as a 40-week serial, and, like any binge-worthy TV show today, I can imagine readers of the day going half-crazy waiting for the next installment. Though I wish the quality of the writing had been a bit more evenhanded, and that Stowe had found a tidier way to wrap things up, this is an important book I’m glad to have finally read.
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