The Harriet Beecher Stowe Collection, including Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Minister’s Wooing, and The Pearl of Orr’s Island

Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Harriett Beecher Stowe is a woman who hated slavery and all its ugliness. President Lincoln is believed to have said, upon meeting Mrs. Stowe, 'So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!' Her powerful character development makes the stories of the slaves all the more heart-wrenching. It was published in 1852, and served as a much-needed national chastisement over the practice of slavery in the south and also the prejudice against black people in the north. In places the book is dated and it makes the modern reader cringe, but overall it is beautifully written to engender compassion for the slaves, and indeed that is exactly what it did. The Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin: This book was written as a response to critics who argued that Stowe’s original book was pure fantasy, and bore no relationship to what actually happened to slaves and others involved with slavery. By documenting her sources, Stowe didn’t completely disarm the critics, but she created a way for her friends to defend the work. The Minister’s Wooing: This historical fiction was set in 18th century Newport, Rhode Island. It mixes invented characters with real people such as the abolitionist Puritan minister Samuel Hopkins and Aaron Burr. Again Stowe touches on the immorality of slavery, this time from a New England perspective, setting her story in a prime slave trading port in the years after the American Revolution. This place and time also gives her the opportunity to explore the changing role of women within American society. Indeed, the heart of the story revolves around a marriage and the question of what constitutes a proper Christian marriage. All of this is written with Stowe’s has a biting, timeless, sardonic wit. The Pearl of Orr’s Island: A Story of the Coast of Maine: This story is set in the 19th century on Orr’s Island, Maine. The tale follows two orphaned children and the small sea coast community they grow up in. Harriet Beecher Stowe lived in near-by Brunswick for several years, and her familiarity with the area comes through in the small details of life on the island and the characters of the inhabitants.