Tom's Cabin_ it was Mrs. Stowe's aim to present the every-day life of
the Southern plantation. She chose for her hero one of those typical
negro characters whose faithfulness and loyalty would so well
illustrate the fidelity of his race, while his sad story would make an
appeal for the freedom of his people.

Into this story she wove descriptions of Southern life, delineations
of negro character, and so many incidents, pathetic and humorous, that
it seemed to present when finished a life-like picture of plantation
life. The pathetic figure of Uncle Tom, the sweet grace of Eva,
the delightful Topsy, and the grim Yankee spinster show alike the
sympathetic heart and mind of the author, who linked them so closely
together in the invisible bonds of love. The beautiful tribute that
St. Clair pays to his mother's influence in one of the striking
passages of the book, was but a memory of Mrs. Stowe's own mother,
who died when her daughter was four years old. No one could read this
pathetic tale without being touched by the sorrows beneath which the
negro race had bowed for generations, and through which he still kept
a loyal love for his white master, a pride in the family of which he
counted himself a member, and that pathetic patience which had been
the birthright of his people.

The book _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, or _Life Among the Lowly_, ran first as
a serial, and came out in book form in 1852. Into it the author had
thrown all the seriousness of her nature, and it met with overwhelming
success. It was translated into twenty different languages, and Uncle
Tom and Eva passed, like the shadow and sunlight of their native land,
hand in hand into the homes, great and humble, of widely scattered
nations.

Another plea for the negro called _Dred, a Tale of the Dismal Swamp_,
followed _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ within a few years, after which Mrs.
Stowe turned her attention to the material that lay closer at hand,
and began the publication of a series of New England life. Into these
she put such a wealth of sympathetic reminiscences, with such a fund
of keen observation, that they stand easily as types of the home-life
of her native hills. The first of this series was _The Minister's
Wooing_, a story of a New England minister's love. It is full of the
sights and scenes familiar to the author from childhood, and is a
faithful picture of Puritan village life, wherein are introduced
many characters as yet new in fiction. Unlike Hawthorne, w