Extra Credit Questions

[AussieMick]

So far I have drawn a blank on the presidential widow. I would exclude Mary Lincoln because her husband wouldn't have had to borrow the book if it was his, no?

"According to the Library of Congress’s circulation records, President Abraham Lincoln borrowed The Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin on June 16, 1862, and returned it 43 days later, on July 29. The dates correspond exactly to the time during which he drafted the Emancipation Proclamation."
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/s...180969094/

In any case he borrowed the book after meeting the author, which is supposed to have been" on or around Thanksgiving Day"...
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/262986...w=fulltext
...which in 1862 was on April 13.
https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/?ye...&country=1

The first link links to a very interesting site on the real Uncle Tom who "never received a dime from Stowe’s publishers". One wonders how much Ms. Stowe received (it was quite the best-seller) and whether she was aware. (Seems always the same with those acting the "saint preachers". We proverbly say "preaching water and drinking wine". )

Not that it solves the question of who the widow might have been, but I just rec'd permission from the author of the Smithsonian article to publish it in an upcoming issue of the Surratt Courier - probably October.

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Just found a counter-claim to the one that Uncle Tom's Cabin was the best-selling novel of the 19th century. "In 1900, Ben-Hur became the best-selling American novel of the 19th century, surpassing Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin." The source for that is an online knowledge forum named Knowpia.com.

Ironic that a general of the Civil War, Lew Wallace, should overtake the lady who wrote a book that fueled the fires of that war.

According to Wikipedia, 'In the first year after it was published, 300,000 copies of the book were sold in the United States; one million copies in Great Britain'.
and
'The book was translated into all major languages, and in the United States it became the second best-selling book after the Bible.' ( For how long that situation continued it doesnt say)