Uncle Tom鈥檚 Cabin broke publishing records and made Harriet Beecher Stowe in her time one of the world鈥檚 most famous authors. The book was a bestseller in Britain and was translated into some forty languages. Yet today Stowe tends to be seen wholly in the context of American literary history. Transatlantic Stowe: Harriet Beecher Stowe and European Culture is the first book to consider multiple aspects of Stowe鈥檚 career in an international context.
The groundbreaking essays of Transatlantic Stowe examine the author鈥檚 literary and literal forays in Europe and the ways in which intellectual and cultural exchanges between the Old and New Worlds shaped her work. It was a crucial moment in the transatlantic discourse, a turning of the tide, and Stowe was among the first American novelists to be lionized in Europe鈥攁nd pirated by publishers鈥攊n the same way that European writers had been treated in America.
Blending historical and cultural criticism and drawing on fresh primary material from London and Paris, Transatlantic Stowe includes essays exploring Stowe鈥檚 relationship with European writers and the influence of her European travels on her work, especially the controversial travel narrative Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands and her 鈥淚talian novel鈥 Agnes of Sorrento.
Interdisciplinary and itself transatlantic, the collection discusses visual art and material culture as well as literature and politics and includes contributions from Britain, Ireland, and the United States. Together these essays offer new interpretations of Stowe鈥檚 most popular novel as well as new readings of her many other works, illuminate the myriad connections between Stowe and European writers, and thus rewrite literary history by returning Stowe to the larger political, historical, and literary contexts of nineteenth-century Europe.
鈥淚nterdisciplinary in their approach, international in their focus, the remarkable essays in Transatlantic Stowe substantially broaden Stowe scholarship to investigate her European influences as well as her important influence on European culture and society.鈥濃擠orothy Z. Baker, University of Houston
鈥Transatlantic Stowe constitutes an outstanding contribution to the field of American and women鈥檚 literature and the recent scholarship in the transatlantic. Full of engaging essays that challenge conventional notions about Stowe鈥檚 work鈥攅ven quite recent criticism about Stowe鈥檚 regionalism鈥攁nd present new insights about Stowe鈥檚 role in the transatlantic dialogue, it is a lively and well-written, truly transatlantic collection in theory and practice.鈥濃擲usan Belasco, University of Nebraska at Lincoln
