Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly by Stowe, Harriet Beecher - 1852

Boston: John P. Jewett, 1852. First edition (with Hobart & Robbins on the copyright pages). Illustrated vignette on title pages and 6 plates by Hammatt Billings. [iii]-x, [13]-312; iv, [5]-322 pp. 2 vols. 8vo. Publisher's brown cloth (BAL binding B) front covers gilt-stamped with vignette, spine lettering gilt. Wear to spine ends and corners, wear to rear joint of vol. II, some intermittent foxing and spotting throughout, still a very attractive set, in custom brown cloth chemises and a morocco-backed slipcase. First edition (with Hobart & Robbins on the copyright pages). Illustrated vignette on title pages and 6 plates by Hammatt Billings. [iii]-x, [13]-312; iv, [5]-322 pp. 2 vols. 8vo. Uncle Tom in the Original Cloth, Early Ownership. A sharp copy in original publisher's cloth of the first edition of one of the most important works of American literature. With contemporary ownership inscriptions on the front pastedowns dated only 6 days after the book's publication, "Lucy Curtis / Newton, March 26, 1852" (BAL notes that Uncle Tom's Cabin was advertised for March 20).
"In the emotion-charged atmosphere of mid-ninteenth-century America Uncle Tom's Cabin exploded like a bombshell. To those engaged in fighting slavery it appeared as an indictment of all the evils inherent in the system they opposed; to the pro-slavery forces it was a slanderous attack on 'the Southern way of life.' Whatever its weakness as a literary work -- structural looseness and excess of sentiment among them - the social impact of Uncle Tom's Cabin on the United States was greater than of any book before or since" (PMM). BAL 19343; Wright 2401; PMM 332; Grolier American 100, 61; Sabin 92457. Provenance: Lucy Curtis (her inscriptions on pastedowns, "Lucy Curtis / Newton, March 26, 1852")