The Greatest Book of Its Kind A Publishing History of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'

Harriet Beecher Stowe, who had no idea of the success that this book would achieve, also lacked experience with book publishers. Right from its publication in book form, sales took off. Through the numerous adaptations, condensations, responses, and other spin-offs, the book brought the issue of slavery before the reading public as nothing else had. But success led to strain and a break with (Stowe?s) publisher John P. Jewett; then, through a chance meeting, to James T. Fields, and ultimately to Houghton Mifflin, the book?s publisher when the copyright expired in 1893. This work explores how, over time, the claim that it was ?The Greatest Book of Its Kind? came to be deserved.