Название: Uncle Tom's Cabin
Автор: Harriet Beecher Stowe
Издательство: LibriVox
Эту книгу озвучил: Larraine Paquette
Год выпуска: 2016
Жанр: Historical Fiction
Аудио кодек: mp3
Битрейт аудио: 128 kbps
Продолжительность: 21:02:12
Качество: Отличное
Размер: 1130 Мб
Язык: Английский

This is a deeply moving novel centered around the lives of Uncle Tom and others and which very effectively portrays the suffering caused by the practice of slavery in the American South, prior to and during the time of the Civil War.

It also provides a fascinating character study of a wide variety of people, including various slave owners, families of slave owners, traders, bystanders, the slaves themselves, and participants in the underground railroad. On one hand there is the ignorance, false mindsets, indifference and even blatant cruelty and abuse on the part of some, and on the other hand there is great love and compassion and sacrifice on the part of others. This was the best-selling novel of the 19th Century and is said to have helped fuel the cause of the abolitionists.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin is one of the most controversial novels of the last century, with it’s sentimental portrayal of the anti-slavery movement in the USA. Written in 1852, the novel instantly rose to fame and split Americans up and down the country. Stowe was a passionate abolitionist and was inspired to write Uncle Tom when she spent time in Cincinnati in the early part of the 18th century. She met many slaves who had escaped from Kentucky and was touched by the friendships she built. It was with this sentiment that the novel was born and the deep empathy Stowe had for slaves is evident throughout.

As you would expect, the book was hugely provocative with pro-slavery supporters outraged by the negative portrayal of masters within the slave trade. It was said to be so incendiary that Abraham Lincoln claimed Stowe to be "the little lady who started this great war". It is not clear if that quote is genuine but the hype Stowe created both before and after the civil war is definitely real. The novel follows the story of long suffering slave Tom and mother and son duo Eliza and Harry. Whilst Tom is sold down the river by his master, Eliza and her son manage to escape the clutches of slavery.

There is no doubt in the genuineness of Howe’s wish to uncover the slave trade for all of its sins. Pleasingly the book ends with an optimistic outlook, one that shook the government at the time and one sure to shake you.