Harriet Beecher Stowe

By Noel B Gerson

218 pages. Praeger $8.95

“So this is the little lady who made this big war,”said Abraham Lincoln. The president was meeting the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin for the first time, more than a decade after the book’s publication in 1852.“It was not simply a patronizing(傲慢的)remark”. Harriet Beecher Stowe really was small：“I am a little bit of a woman,”she described herself,“about as thin and dry as a pinch of snuff.”

If Uncle Tom’s Cabin did not quite start a war, it ignited the minds of people North and South, both for and against abolition. Tens of thousands of Americans who had not read the book already knew Simon Legree as the classic slave driver and Uncle Tome the black victim.

Harriet Beecher Stowe was a well-known writer well before Uncle Tom’s Cabin made her rich and famous. For a time, she and her preacher husband Calvin Stowe were too poor to afford a servant. Mrs. Stowe ran her house, cared for her twin daughters(the first two of seven children),churned out genteel, folksy stories and religious essays to help make ends meet.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin changed all that. It was the first great American best-seller. In the initial year in print, it sold 300,000 copies, and eventually more than 3 million American readers bought the book. Worldwide, sales ran to something like 10 million in 40 languages.

In this plain but informative portrait, biographer Gerson notes that author Stowe never visited the deep South before the Civil War. Most of the knowledge of slavery was gained from former slaves whom she met while living in Cincinnati(one of the busiest stops on the Underground Railway), though she did visit a working plantation in Kentucky briefly in 1833.

In spite of the impact on the world of her celebrated novel it turns out that except for the issue of slavery, she had a scant interest in politics.

1．Harriet Beecher Stowe is a book that describes mainly________.

　　　　 A．the effect of Uncle Tom’s Cabin

B．the family of Mrs. Stowe

C．the reason for the popularity of Uncle Tom’s Cabin

D．the life and works of Mrs. Stowe

2．Abraham Lincoln’s remark concerning Harriet Beecher Stowe was______.

　　　　 A．patronizing and inspiring

B．important and necessary

C．made in 1852

D．patronizing but quite accurate

3．The cause of the Civil War was really_________.

　　　　 A．the issue of abolition

B．the uprising of the oppressed class

C．the popularity of the song“Old Black Joe”

D．the anger felt by those who read“Uncle Tom’s Cabin”

4．Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote many stories________.

　　　　 A．to fight for the independence of America

B．to supplement her husband’s income

C．to champion the cause of the slaves

D．to obtain fame as a writer

5．Harriet Beecher Stowe’s knowledge of slavery was________.

　　　　 A．not accurate

B．based on reports only

C．gathered from both slave drivers and slaves

D．mainly gained from slaves