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Was Uncle Tom’s Cabin the towering achievement of American fiction, the most influential book ever penned by an American, as Reynolds claims? Did this single novel by the “little lady” truly spark the Civil War, and help to put an end to slavery? One is more a literary question, the other more historical; and definitive answers can be hard to come by. Reynolds asks us to consider the evidence, and vote. I’ve long been sympathetic to his views, and his splendid account here, which is the crowning fruit of a lifetime of outstanding scholarship, only adds to my enthusiasm for Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Harold K. Bush, Jr. reviewing David S. Reynolds’ Mightier Than the Sword in Books & Culture. Reynolds argues that that Uncle Tom’s Cabin should be considered the most important and influential novel ever written by an American and Bush largely agrees.
I read the book for the first time last year and can’t disagree with the choice, although admittedly I haven’t read near as many American novels as these two.
