A Key to Uncle Tom's

Cabin

A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin is a book by

American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. It
was published to document the veracity of
the depiction of slavery in Stowe's anti-
slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852).
First published in 1853 by Jewett, Proctor
& Worthington, the book also provides
insights into Stowe's own views on slavery.
 A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin

Cover of the 1854 edition

Author Harriet Beecher

Stowe

Country United States

Language English

Subject Slavery

Published 1853
Publisher Jewett, Proctor &
Worthington

Pages 268 pages

Preceded by Uncle Tom's Cabin

Origins
After the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin,
Southerners accused Stowe of
misrepresenting slavery. In order to show
that she had neither lied about slavery nor
exaggerated the plight of enslaved people,
she compiled A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin.
The book was subtitled "Presenting the
Original Facts and Documents upon Which
the Story Is Founded, Together with
Corroborative Statements Verifying the
Truth of the Work".[1]

Reception
The reaction of Stowe's contemporaries to
A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin was very
similar to the reaction to Uncle Tom’s
Cabin, with both very positive and very
negative reviews. The responses of
abolitionists and Northerners in general
were among the positive, lauding the
documentation of the evils of slavery and
the confirmation of the truth of Uncle
Tom’s Cabin.
The great interest in Uncle Tom’s Cabin in
England also transferred to the Key. One
English review of the 1853 publication
called it a "marvelous book, more so if
possible than Uncle Tom’s Cabin itself".[2]
This same review also commends Stowe's
self-control and character. This impression
of Stowe and the reception of the book is
very different from the reaction to the Key
in the South.

The pro-slavery response to the Key

paralleled the response to Uncle Tom's
Cabin. Despite Stowe's use of documented
examples, most Southern reviews still
claimed that Stowe was misrepresenting
slavery and exaggerating the cruelty of the
institution. A review in the Southern
Literary Messenger called the Key a
"distortion of the facts and mutilation of
the records, for the sake of giving
substance to the scandalous fancy, and
reduplicating the falsehood of the
representation".[3] Although these reviews
claimed that Stowe was misrepresenting
slavery, they did not accuse Stowe of using
false documentation. Rather they claimed
that the examples that Stowe provided are
the most extreme instances, which she
gathered to give the worst possible
impression of the institution of slavery,
and of the South. One critic, William
Simms, accused her of using faulty
argumentation by gathering facts to prove
her assumption, instead of forming
assumptions based on facts.[3]

Another pro-slavery response to both

Uncle Tom's Cabin and A Key to Uncle Tom's
Cabin was attacks on Stowe's character.
Many reviews made insinuations about
what sort of woman Stowe must be to
write about such events as were found in
the Key. A review by George Holmes
questioned whether "scenes of license and
impurity, and ideas of loathsome depravity
and habitual prostitution [are] to be made
the cherished topics of the female pen"; he
appealed to women, especially Southern
women, not to read Stowe's works.[4]

Despite the attacks from pro-slavery

reviewers, A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin sold
well: 90,000 copies in the first month, a
clear best-seller.[5][6]

References
1. McFarland, Philip. Loves of Harriet Beecher
Stowe. New York: Grove Press, 2007: 105.
ISBN 978-0-8021-4390-7

2. "A review of Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin". The

Eclectic Review 4 (May 1853): 600–617.
Rpt. in Nineteenth-Century Literature
Criticism. Ed. Laurie Lanzen Harris. Vol. 3.
3. Simms, William Gilmore. "Stowe's Key to
Uncle Tom's Cabin". The Southern Quarterly
Review 8.15 (July 1853): 214–254. Rpt. in
Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism. Ed.
Laurie Lanzen Harris. Vol. 3.

4. Holmes, George Frederick. "A review of A

Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin". Southern
Literary Messenger 19.6 (June 1853): 321–
330. Rpt. in Nineteenth-Century Literature
Criticism. Ed. Laurie Lanzen Harris. Vol. 3.

5. Geary, Susan. "Harriet Beecher Stowe, John

P. Jewett, and Author-Publisher Relations in
1853". Studies in the American
Renaissance. Ed. Joel Myerson. Boston:
Twayne, 1977. 345–367.

6. Railton, Stephen. "Uncle Tom's Cabin &

American Culture" (http://utc.iath.virginia.e
 du/uncletom/key/kyhp.html) . University of
Virginia. Retrieved 15 April 2011.

Further reading
Otter, Samuel. "Stowe and Race". The
Cambridge Companion to Harriet Beecher
Stowe. Ed. Cindy Weinstein. Cambridge
Companions to Literature (Cctl).
Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP,
2004. 15–38. ISBN 0-521-82592-X,
ISBN 0-521-53309-0.

External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related
to A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Full text of A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (h
ttp://utc.iath.virginia.edu/uncletom/key/
kyhp.html) (1854 edition) at the
electronic text center of the University of
Virginia. It is part of "Uncle Tom's Cabin
and American Culture: A Multimedia
Archive" (http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/)
directed by Stephen Railton. Accessed
July 22, 2006.
A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (https://libri
vox.org/search?title=A+Key+to+Uncle+T
om's+Cabin&author=Stowe&reader=&ke
ywords=&genre_id=0&status=all&project
_type=either&recorded_language=&sort_
order=catalog_date&search_page=1&se
 arch_form=advanced) public domain
audiobook at LibriVox

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