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    Uncle Tom's Cabin
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    Uncle Tom's Cabin
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    Uncle Tom's Cabin
    Audiobook20 hours

    Uncle Tom's Cabin

    Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe

    Narrated by Susie Berneis

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    In debt, Kentucky farmer Arthur Shelby reluctantly decides to trade two of his slaves. The two, middle-aged Uncle Tom and young Harry, are to be sold to Mr. Haley, a detestable slave trader. Eliza, Harry’s mother and Mrs. Shelby’s maid, overhears the details of the arraignment, warns Uncle Tom and flees with Harry to the north. Eliza and Harry barely make it across the Ohio River before slave catchers can catch up with them. On the run, Eliza and her family seek shelter and safety. Meanwhile, Uncle Tom, who refused to run away, is separated from his family and sold down river. As novel progresses, the juxtaposed narratives highlight the harsh reality of slavery.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamscape Media Audio
    Release dateApr 29, 2014
    ISBN9781629235011
    Author

    Harriet Beecher Stowe

    Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) was an American abolitionist and author of more than 20 books, including novels, three travel memoirs, and collections of articles and letters. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) was a realistic account of life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom.

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    Reviews for Uncle Tom's Cabin

    4/5

    2,209 ratings78 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This book lies so heavy on my heart. There is one thing in our country's history that bothers me the most and that is slavery. This book was very hard for me to listen to. I can't wrap my mind around someone treating another person like dogs because of the color of their skin. There were many times that I wanted to smack several people for the things they said. I would like to believe if I had lived during times of slavery I would be one of the people who helped free slaves and stand up for their rights. I don't have time for hatred and it saddens me when people are abused.
    • 4/5
      A very interesting and informative description of dark times that most of us might prefer to go through life not 'knowing' but must learn about in detail not in a glossed over history book.
    • 1/5
      Important, yes; good, no.
    • 3/5
      The story of Tom and his unflinching honor and kindness, the courage of Eliza escaping with her child across the river ice, the cruelty inflicted by the horrible Simon Legree, the efforts of the Shelbys and the St. Clares to live morally in an immoral system: these are great stories told well. The influence of the Christian religion on the author and thus on her characters is all-pervading and oppressive after a while. The book does read as a polemic and, no doubt, an effective one at the time. It is read now for its place in history rather than its intrinsic value as literature, I think.
    • 5/5
      Hauntlngly beautiful.I avoided reading this book for many years because I was afraid it would be too painful. Now that I have read it though, I regret that I waited so long.Uncle Tom's Cabin follows the story of Tom, a slave who has lived most of his life on a plantation with a kind master. He is much loved by the other slaves who call him "Uncle Tom". As the story begins we find that Tom his being sold so his master can cover some debts. Many other deeply rich characters are woven into the narrative, but the main character throughout is Tom.This book is known, rightly, for it's anti-slavery message, but it is much more than that. It is a story about the strength of the human spirit to survive the unthinkable and it's a story about faith in Christ. I am a Christian, and still I am in awe that the slaves could find and hold onto faith while living in slavery. Because of my own life experiences, I felt I could relate much better to Cassie (a female slave introduced late in the book, who is understandably angry and hardened by life.) Tom's faith and testimony moved me. Once in a while you find a book that leaves you a different person, a better person for having read it . . . Uncle Tom's Cabin did that for me.
    • 4/5
      Brutal and confronting portrait of American slavery.
    • 5/5
      This book is so overwhelming good, I just don't know what to say, other than, I wish I had read it earlier in my life, and I wish all United States citizens and residents were required to read this. The author's "Concluding Remarks" alone are powerful enough to bring the reader to tears, and the whole book makes one question man's inhumanity to man in one of the darkest chapters of this planet's history. I feel spent just from having read it. I can't imagine all the poor souls who had to go through this...
    • 4/5
      While hard to read at times (both due to the subject matter and the 19th-century prose), this book remains just as powerful as many readers found it upon first publication. Uncle Tom's Cabin traces the stories of several slaves as they navigate between masters, escape, freedom, daily toil, and faith. At the outset, Tom and another very young slave Harry are intended for sale to settle the debts of their master in Kentucky. Harry's mother Eliza discovers the plan and frantically runs away, braving the ice on the Ohio River to bring herself and her son to freedom. They are later joined by her husband George, while Tom is sold first to a kind master, then comes under the ownership of an abusive one. In each step of Tom and Eliza's journeys, they meet other slaves with tragic tales and white allies who maintain escape routes for runaway slaves. While slavery may be long past, this book remains a stark picture of how the United States once was and is still a powerful message about racism.
    • 2/5
      While I understand the book’s historical importance and appreciate its message, I had a really hard time getting through this for a couple of reasons. First, the religious rhetoric was very difficult for me. The long passages of religious posturing seemed to go on and on without end. Second, the characters are extremely one dimensional and idealized. Even the quite evil Legree is said to somehow see the wrong he is doing and still choose the path of evil. Third, there are entirely too many happy or sad coincidences. Characters randomly happen upon one another by chance. It took me out of the story at times. I am glad I re-read it (it has been years), and I value the importance of the work. However, I don’t think I will be reading again.Note: Read through DailyLit
    • 5/5
      Great characters, plot, and theme. The narrator of this audiobook was terrific. She used a different voice for each character which helped keep me interested.
    • 5/5
      Wow. I never knew… what an amazing testimony to God.
    • 4/5
      Harriet Beecher Stowe's book is one that I would classify as important rather than great. It's a powerful condemnation of slavery using the language of Stowe's Christian faith, and her moral outrage at it seeps through nearly every page. This I expected; what I didn't expect was how she developed her characters. While her African American characters are uniformly dignified and good, most of the slaveholders received surprisingly nuanced treatments, with some good (if hypocritical) characters among them and only the infamous Simon Legree really embodying in full the evil and corruption resulting from slavery. Yet for all the positive nature of her depiction of her slave characters Stowe cannot help but reflect the racial attitudes of her time, with descriptions that have not aged well. In this she demonstrates the limits of even antislavery activists in their attitudes towards African Americans, yet this is all of a piece in a work that arguably serves as the most historically significant novel in American history, one that helped galvanize opposition to the institution that was corroding the nation's soul.
    • 5/5
      Totally inspiring and motivating for the best for everyone in the world!
    • 4/5
      Summary: Stowe blows the lid on slavery during the time when people were still insane enough to believe that it was an acceptable way of life.
    • 1/5
      There are reasons I really wanted to like this book:

      *It is (or was) a classic
      *Its author is famously known as the person Abraham Lincoln jokingly credited with starting the American Civil War and, ergo, an end to slavery in the United States.
      *The principles and courage of the author to put herself out there and critique a nation, not just for its legislation, but the more insidious racism of many abolitionists, must have been tremendous.

      However, I found the act of ploughing through this novel to be one long exercise in patience. As someone who does not adhere to any religion, the endless passages about The Lord, quotes from the Bible, and descriptions of religious activity were increasingly tedious and I found myself skipping swathes of text just to get on with the story.

      Ah, the story... therein lies another problem. Having done a little more research since completing this book, I understand that Beecher Stowe originally wrote this as a series, published weekly in a paper. Therefore, the introduction to each chapter, which reminds 'our reader' who we are catching up with next and apologises to 'our reader' for not having had time to describe Mrs Such-and-Such last night with 'all the activity going on' became equally as wearing as the Bible-bashing after a few chapters. The other consequence of this approach means that Beecher Stowe introduced a plethora of new characters with each section. I ended up losing interest in 'meeting' yet another person because I couldn't get into any of the characters enough to care about them. The titular Uncle Tom is absent for more of the book than he is present and this makes it especially difficult to root for him by the time his story reaches its climax.

      The final chapters are ludicrous in their reliance on coincidence - at least Oscar Wilde made sure his tongue was firmly in his cheek during the reveal. The only aspect of the book I found interesting was the final word by the author, highlighting the plight of the slave to her Southern cousins and Northern friends. I would have been happy to read that part on its own and still come away with the same level of understanding about attitudes and issues at that time. Others have described the entire novel as reading more like an essay and I agree. Had Beecher Stowe not used such a clunky, preaching approach I am sure this would have continued to shine as an illuminating example of literature's powerful role in society. As it is, the author lacked the talent of her contemporary peers to create a wonderful narrative and the result, a century and a half later, is painfully dull.
    • 4/5
      A great book on slavery, an educational book (read it when I was 12...)
    • 4/5
      Within a few pages I quickly understood why they aren't teaching this one in schools anymore. It's not nearly so bad as adaptations would have you believe, but yeah, it's bad. The author's heart was clearly in the right place, but several times she assigns blanket characteristics to an entire race. It's a fascinating historical artifact, but far from politically correct by today's standards. What's most engaging about reading it now is its perfect capturing of the voice of its times. It's difficult to fathom a world where slavery is the number one pressing political issue, but here it is in all its grimness. This is no great work of literature - the author's insertions, the staggering pacing, and the giant Christianity club can be wearing - but every bit worth a read for a chilling visit to a not-distant-enough past.
    • 5/5
      I read this in 8th grade and was duly taken by it. If I was not an abolitionist before I read it I certainly was one after I finished it.
    • 3/5
      3.5 stars.Uncle Tom's Cabin was written in 1852. Tom and Eliza are slaves owned by Mr. Shelby, who is a kind master and treats his slaves well. However, when he has money problems, he must sell a couple of them to a slave trader - Tom, and Eliza's young son Harry, are sold. The book follows Tom one direction after he is sold, and Eliza and Harry in another direction as they run to escape Harry's unknown fate once the trader sells him; they are trying to reach Canada. I was surprised that this was much easier to read than I expected. I don't normally like books written in the 19th century (at least the few that I've attempted to read), so I wasn't sure how this would go. I actually quite liked the book.
    • 5/5
      The 1952 Dodd, Mead Great Illustrated Classics edition is wonderful. Illustrations include those of Cruikshank, Dunbar, and others; Langston Hughes wrote the captions and an Introduction.Apparently, Dickens and Trollope praised this book, and the first run, of 5,000 copies, sold out in two days in 1852 in Boston. I believe it.
    • 5/5
      I felt I had to read the classic. The novel was interesting and kept my attention. I hadn't realized how religious it was.
    • 4/5
      Although the character Uncle Tom has been criticized for being too meek and utterly subservient, and too gentle and religious when maybe a real person would have been bitter and rebellious instead, that's hardly the point of this book.Stowe, the daughter of a preacher, opposed slavery on the grounds of her faith. That is evident throughout the book, and regardless of the reader's religious persuasion, the truth about slavery and its inherent injustice is brought to light and boldly condemned.In this book, she represented an entire range of slaves and slave-owners, from the persistent superlative meekness and gentleness of Uncle Tom to the desperate rebellion of others, and from the kindness of one slave-owner to the insane cruelty of Simon Legree. She draws special attention to the tragedy of mothers and children being separated and the inability of slaves to protect themselves or their families, and even the futility of a kind master's good intentions.
    • 4/5
      I loved this! Beautiful and heartbreaking though some of my emotional bonds were stronger with side characters. It's fascinating to see how our perspectives of Uncle Tom have evolved throughout history.
    • 3/5
      Propaganda as art: That is how Harriet Beecher Stowe has presented the story of slavery in the mid-19th century. There are times when Stowe beats you over the head with the message that slavery is an evil that should not survive in a "Christian world." There is a heavy dose of religion presented here, and Tom's faith is a powerful tool in his struggle and ultimately a transcendent virtue at the novel's climax.

      Some of Stowe's viewpoints are outdated, with a kind of "noble savage" perspective of blacks, whom she portrays as pitiful creatures at times. The final chapters are a bit overwrought, with a drawn out tying up of loose ends and a call for African nationalism, but not in America, which seems racist in today's society: "Set free the slaves and send them back to Africa rather than allow them to be equals in America." The final chapter is Stowe's final thesis against slavery, as she argues the authenticity of her characters and their lives.

      Despite its dated language and ideals, it remains a powerful argument against America's worst transgression. The plot moves along quickly, as you can tell it was first published episodically. There is a lot of action, and the plot only stalls for a few chapters here and there. Some of the scenes will make you cringe, and that's the point.

      Stowe leaves no one out of this book. Every character archetype is here: from meek and subservient slaves to the revolutionary firebrands, from the well-meaning slave owner to the brutal plantation master. Stowe addresses every man, woman and child in her treatise to end slavery. While today's reader must look beyond some of the content here, this novel remains one of the most important novels in U.S. history.
    • 4/5
      This is a powerful story of the ills of slavery. The characters come alive and make you feel like you are a part of the story. I really enjoyed the strong females in the book and the portrayal of slavery and its effects on families and individuals. I found this book to be a compelling story and hard to put down. I highly recommend it.
    • 5/5
      Best audiobook I've heard this year! The narrator has done such a masterful performance that she deserves 10 Oscars.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 1/5
      Absolute trite garbage. One of the worst reading experiences I have experienced. This is religious sentimentality in its worst basest most soap-opera form. Pompous and self-aggrandizing. I would NOT recommend it to anyone unless you have to read it for your studies as a mandatory text.
    • 5/5
      “The way of the wicked is as darkness; he knoweth not at what he stumbleth.”Written in 1852, this book continues today as a classic novel about slavery, racism, hope and the Christian faith. It was written to educate as well as to remind future generations. It was a best-seller, selling 10,000 copies in the United States in its first week; 300,000 in the first year. It also sold then, and still sells today, in the international market. It has been on banned book lists since its publication. Today, many school districts and/or states ban it due to language, racism, and/or Christianity.Mrs. Stowe was from the Northeast United States. The United States Congress passed the Compromise of 1850. It was intended to address the concerns of slave holding and free states, yet it helped galvanize the abolition movement. Mrs. Stowe formed her stance on slavery because of this law. Among the provisions of the Compromise of 1850 were the end of the slave trade, but not slavery, and the creation of a stricter Fugitive Slave Law. Helping runaways had been illegal since 1793, but the 1850 law required that everyone help catch fugitives. This law erased any protection that a fugitive had had. Anyone on the street could be picked up and accused of being a fugitive from slavery. Thus free Blacks were often picked up and sent into slavery.She was angry, believing her country was now requiring her to comply with a system that she believed was unjust and immoral. While she and her husband, Calvin Stowe, were living in Maine, she disobeyed the law by hiding runaways. Mrs. Stowe lived in Connecticut, Ohio, and Maine, yet she knew slavery through several avenues. While in Ohio, she and her husband were a part of the Underground Railroad. Her brother met a plantation owner who was cruel and evil as the book’s Simon Legree. She traveled to Kentucky where she visited plantations with slaves. She felt the message of slavery needed to be espoused clearly and loudly. She shared her frustrations and feelings of powerlessness with her family. It was then that her sister-in-law suggested she do more: “…if I could use a pen as you can, Hatty, I would write something that would make this whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is.” This letter touched Mrs. Stowe to the heart. She was determined to write “if [she] lived.”The story follows two lines. One is Tom who chooses to stay with his family rather than run away once he finds that he is to be sold to pay debts of the plantation owner. He hoped that his family would be able to stay together if he did not run. The second is Eliza who finds that her young son, Harry, is also to be sold for these debts. Eliza chooses to run away with Harry.We follow Eliza and Harry as they wind their way on escape routes, running just ahead of slave hunters, being protected by Quakers missionaries along the way to arrive safely in Canada. We also follow Tom from plantation owners who treat their slaves gently and kindly to being sold to a harsh slave trader who then sells Tom to other plantation owners. The final one is the cruel and violent Simon Legree.Slavery and the slave trade separated families, husbands from wives, mothers from children. Punishments, fierce and gruesome, showed that slaves were treated as less than human. Freedom came for some; others received promises of freedom, but when the master died suddenly or he racked up a lot of debt, those slaves were sold “down the river.”There are moments in the story filled with hope and love, people desiring to help others. There are times filled with cruelty and fear, people filled with hatred. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is fiction yet is based on a conglomerate portrait of slaves, owners, families, and abolitionists. It has the genuine mixture of story/subject, characters, settings, and emotions to make it a classic and a bestseller. It is an excellent story, although so hard and harsh at times, yet carried along with hope and love.AuthorHarriet Beecher was born June 14, 1811 in Litchfield, CT to the Rev. Lyman Beecher (1775-1863) and Roxanna Foote Beecher (1775- 1816); the sixth of 11 children. The Beechers expected their children to make a difference in the world, and they truly did: All seven sons became ministers (the most effective way to influence society in that period) Oldest daughter, Catharine pioneered education for women Youngest daughter, Isabella was a founder of the National Women’s Suffrage Association Harriet believed her purpose in life was to write. Her most famous work exposed the truth about the greatest social injustice of her day – human slaveryStowe began her formal education at Sarah Pierce’s academy, one of the earliest to encourage girls to study academic subjects and not simply ornamental arts. In 1824, she became a student and then a teacher at Hartford Female Seminary, which was founded by her sister Catharine.In 1851, The National Era’s publisher contracted with Stowe for a story that would “paint a word picture of slavery” and that would run in installments. Uncle Tom’s Cabin or Life Among the Lowly turned out to be more than 40 installments before it was published into a book.In all, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s writing career spanned 51 years, during which time she published 30 books and countless short stories, poems, articles, and hymns.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~This has been a book I have wanted to read for years and years. I finally decided it would fit into my library of Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson and Slavery by Another Name by Douglas A. Blackmon, two excellent non-fiction books.This book is 496 pages. I joined in Sue Jackson’s “Big Book Summer Challenge” @ Book By Book (as this book was over the 400 page minimum).
    • 2/5
      While I understand the book’s historical importance and appreciate its message, I had a really hard time getting through this for a couple of reasons. First, the religious rhetoric was very difficult for me. The long passages of religious posturing seemed to go on and on without end. Second, the characters are extremely one dimensional and idealized. Even the quite evil Legree is said to somehow see the wrong he is doing and still choose the path of evil. Third, there are entirely too many happy or sad coincidences. Characters randomly happen upon one another by chance. It took me out of the story at times. I am glad I re-read it (it has been years), and I value the importance of the work. However, I don’t think I will be reading again.Note: Read through DailyLit
    • 5/5
      I spent two months reading “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, not for the complexity of prose but for the subject matter. At times, reading no more than two pages, putting it down, digesting the words (or trying to forget the words) for days before picking it up again. I don’t know how many tissues I went through reading this book. My reading speed picked up when the precocious little Eva entered the pages. Oh, how I fell in love with Eva St. Clare. She was the joy and sunshine in a dark, oppressive tale who reminded the reader how innocence, love, and kindness can radiate to all. I needed her to carry me through this difficult story. (In 1852, 300 babies in Boston alone were named Eva.)“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” traced the story of the pious Uncle Tom and a related/parallel story of escaping slaves, George, Eliza, and Harry Harris. Tragedy strikes throughout UTC, with deaths on both the blacks and the whites. The book was based on the life of Josiah Henson, an escaped slave who fled to Canada with his wife and children in the 1830s. The tragic tales (the suicides, the torture of slaves) and the amazing feat of jumping an icy river were leveraged from real life tales. Published in 1852, Stowe was inspired to write UTC partly due to the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law prohibiting assistance to fugitives. Stowe and her husband were both abolitionist and had supported the Underground Tunnel. A goal of the book was to educate northerners of the realistic horrors of the slave trade happening in the South and also to increase (or initiate) empathy towards slaves for the southerners. This book became a best seller, leading up to the apocryphal that when Abraham Lincoln met Stowe at the start of the Civil War, Lincoln declared, "So this is the little lady who started this great war." However, this text was never in print until 1896. It would have been a good story if true.Needless to say, the book was condemned in the South during the same era and even in recent history. Interestingly, as African-Americans became educated and were reading the book for the first time, they too criticized the book for its stereotyping of blacks – obsequious and toadying. While I can understand this perspective, the book had served its purpose in 1852. 4 stars for the book itself (a bit wordy). 0.5 stars for the highly affective emotional tugs without feeling overwrought. 0.5 stars for the significant historical footprint it left. Favorite character: Hands down, Eva St. Clare Least favorite character: It could have been Haley, the slave trader, or Legree, the cruel plantation owner, but it was Marie Benoir/St. Clare – the most obnoxious, self-centered, tyrannical being who tormented Mammy and refused Tom’s freedom just for the money, even though she doesn’t need it. I wanted to strangle her. Things I learned: 1. The tragic baby/slave making that women were forced to do. 2. The vulnerability of slaves upon the master’s death. Some Quotes:On beauty and old age:"Her hair, partially silvered by age, was parted smoothly back from a high placid forehead, on which time had written no inscription, except peace on earth, good will to men, and beneath shone a large pair of clear, honest, loving brown eyes; you only needed to look straight into them, to feel that you saw to the bottom of a heart as good and true as ever throbbed in woman's bosom. So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls, why don't somebody wake up to the beauty of old women?"On God:"’Is there a God to trust in?’ said George, in such a tone of bitter despair as arrested the old gentleman's words. ‘O, I've seen things all my life that made me feel that there can't be a God. You Christians don't know how these look to us. There's a God for you, but is there any for us?’"On racism, from St. Clare:You = Northerners. “You loathe them as you would a snake or a toad, yet 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. You would send them to Africa, out of your sight and smell, and then send a missionary or two to do up all the self-denial of elevating them compendiously.” On religion, from St. Clare:"Religion! Is what you hear at church religion? Is that which can bend and turn, and descend and ascend, to fit every crooked phase of selfish, worldly society, religion? Is that religion which is less scrupulous, less generous, less just, less considerate for man, than even my own ungodly, worldly, blinded nature? No! When I look for a religion, I must look for something above me, and not something beneath."On slavery, from St. Clare:“It’s all nonsense to talk to me about slaves enjoying all this! … Tell me that any man living wants to work all his days, from day-dawn till dark, under the constant eye of a master, without the power of putting forth one irresponsible volition, on the same dreary, monotonous, unchanging toil, and all for two pairs of pantaloons and a pair of shoes a year, with enough food shelter to keep him in working order!”