it was apparent that the little lady from Maine had written the best-seller of the nineteenth century. Due to an unwise initial contract with Jewett, the absence of international copyright, and her own carelessness, Stowe did not become a rich woman, but her first novel achieved and held a popularity that not even Dickens’s books could match. Countless folk songs and dramas based on Uncle Tom soon endowed it with the aura of a permanent American myth; its critical reputation, in contrast, has varied widely.
