This 1852 novel provides a powerful, historical look at the treatment of slaves in the pre-Civil War South.

"In 1790, Lavinia, a seven-year-old Irish orphan with no memory of her past, arrives on a tobacco plantation where she is put to work as an indentured servant with the kitchen house slaves. Though she becomes deeply bonded to her new family, Lavinia is also slowly accepted into the world of the big house, where the master is absent and the mistress battles opium addiction. As time passes she finds herself perilously straddling two very different worlds...

It's 1894. Jordan Wallace and Sadie Wagner appear to have little in common. Jordan, a middle-aged black teacher, lives in segregated Chicago. Two thousand miles away, Sadie, the white wife of an ambitious German businessman, lives in more tolerant Oakland, California. But years ago, their families intertwined on a plantation in Virginia. There, Jordan's and Sadie's mothers developed a bond stronger than blood, despite the fact that one was enslaved...

Published in 1852, Uncle Tom's Cabin brought the abolitionist's message to the White House and beyond. No woman before or since has so successfully written a novel designed to motivate America to act on a major issue of the day. Controversial still, this novel has weathered continual debates on all aspects of its writing and its subject matter. In her eloquent introduction, Ann Douglas establishes the historical and literary significane of this...