Susan Elkin
The Little Woman who Started a Civil War
Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life
By Joan D Hedrick
Oxford University Press 508pp £25 order from our bookshop
When her ship arrived at Liverpool on 10 April 1853 Harriet Beecher Stowe was fêted like royalty. Thousands thronged the docks as far as the eye could see. Smiling crowds lined the streets as she was driven away by cab and one small boy tried to climb in with her. And she was greeted by similar receptions all over Britain during her tour, as well as being welcomed and entertained by earls, countesses, lords, ladies, politicians and churchmen.
The cause of the excitement was, of course, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The nineteenth century’s biggest bestseller, it sold in millions and in many formats, with several translations. It caused the rapid metamorphosis of its author into an international antislavery campaigner. Apart from the outstanding commercial success of Uncle Tom’s Cabin,
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'For all his reputation as the great theorist of democracy, Tocqueville was never an enthusiast for universal suffrage or the kind of electoral politics that went with it.'
Alan Ryan asks what Alexis de Tocqueville's ideas can teach us today.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/oui-the-people
'Within two days of arriving at the retreat, he is called away to attend the funeral of a friend killed in the Charlie Hebdo attacks ... Carrère is soon divorced and suicidal, interned in a psychiatric institution where he must slowly rebuild his life.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/lunge-twist-pose
'Foreign-policy pundits, then as now, tended to lack subtlety, even if they could be highly articulate about a nation they did not like very much.'
Read Lucy Wooding's review of Clare Jackson's 'Devil-Land', which has won the @WolfsonHistory prize.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-view-from-across-the-channel