Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly - In Two Volumes - Illustrated

Boston: John P. Jewett & Company, 1852. Early Reprint. Hardcover in Clamshell Case. Very Good/Case Very Good+. Hammatt Billings. Two volumes. 8vo. Pp. x, 14-312; iv, 6-322. Illustrated title pages. With six additional full-page Billings illustrations. Publisher's brown cloth, titles stamped in gilt on the spines, title page vignette in gilt on the upper cover and in blind on the lower, blind stamped border and spine decorations. Vol. I twenty-fifth thousand; vol. II twentieth thousand. "Stereotyped by Hobart & Robbins," "Printed by Geo. C. Rand & Co." on copyright pages. Bookseller tag of Wm. Young, Manchester N.H. Slight spine lean, corners and spine ends rubbed through to boards, pencil markings to FFEP, light foxing to title pages and plates, edges moderately toned, gilt bright and cloth well preserved.Housed in a heavy drop-down-back clamshell case, half polished calf over brown cloth matched to covers, titles stamped in gilt on the spine, five raised bands, gilt rules. When meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lincoln purportedly said, “so you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.” That could be apocryphal, but it attests to the status of Uncle Tom's Cabin as the most important novel ever published - socially and politically - in the United States. A well-preserved copy from early in its first year when six presses worked to meet demand. BAL19343 B binding. Printing and the Mind of Man, 519.Volumes now protected with removable, clear archival sleeves.