UNCLE TOM'S CABIN; or, Life Among the Lowly. [In Two Volumes.]

1852. [in the rare printed wrappers] Boston: John P. Jewett & Company / Cleveland, Ohio: Jewett, Proctor & Worthington, 1852. Original printed tan wrappers.

First Edition, early printing (reading "Seventy-Fifth Thousand" and "Seventieth Thousand" on the two title pages, issued three or four months after the first). The first printing (March 1852) consisted of 5,000 copies, but within ten days that printing was sold and another 5,000 copies (with "Tenth Thousand" on the titles) were printed; by May 1852 the total was up to 50,000, and by October 1852 it was 120,000. (From this, one could interpolate that these volumes were issued in (truncated) June-July 1852 -- confirmed by this copy's Provenance below.) Mrs. Stowe had been inspired to write this novel by the 1850 passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, in which "all good citizens" (Northern as well as Southern) were commanded to assist Federal agents in capturing runaway slaves and returning them to their masters. UNCLE TOM'S CABIN was first published serially in the abolitionist periodical National Era, from June 1851 to April 1852; the author had originally intended to complete the work in a few issues, but strong public interest encouraged her to continue it for ten months. The book was published in March 1852, prior to the end of serialization, and quickly became a "runaway" sensation. Certainly this book, in combination with the Fugitive Slave Act, was a major catalyst of the American Civil War -- as Lincoln himself implied, when he met Mrs. Stowe. This copy is in Blanck's rare binding "A," printed tan wrappers (binding "B" is cloth, and binding "C" -- not initially an option -- is cloth with extra gilt). The main drawback of this set is that the front wrapper of Vol II is lacking; however, the other covers, and both paper spines, are remarkably still present (the Vol I rear cover has ads ending with this title; the Vol II rear cover is blank). There are a couple of small closed tears in the Vol I front wrapper, and there is wear to the wrapper edges (especially the Vol II rear wrapper) as one would expect -- but the volumes are tight, and the leaves (including all six plates) are clean and white. Overall, very good. One literally sees hundreds of early cloth copies of UNCLE TOM'S CABIN for each single copy in wrappers, as here; yes, the first printing would be preferable -- but the last two such copies at auction brought $25,000 in 2017 (lacking a wrapper), and $30,240 in 2023 (re-backed). Blanck 19343; a Merle Johnson "High Spot" of American Literature -- where he says "These books are of such paramount historical importance that it is difficult to evaluate them as literature." Provenance: small Vol I bookseller label of T.J. Crowen, 599 Broadway N.Y. (who also published some books on abolitionism); signature of the initial owner Elisabeth Coolidge at the top of each title page, in Vol I dated "July 8th / 52" and in Vol II dated "June 1852 (Inventory #: 15682)