IllogiSource:Uncle Tom's Cabin

Uncle Tom's Cabin was a groundbreaking novel authored by Harriet Beecher Stowe, which told the inspiring, heartbreaking story of a cabin named Andre. Because the book focuses on the adventures of a cabin, it is now seen as not particularly interesting; most of the cabin's adventures consisted of standing very still and doing absolutely nothing. The book does contain many touching passages describing Andre the cabin's religious devotion--Andre is described reading the Bible to help him deal with the emotional anguish of a termite infestation. The book was also very forward-thinking for its time--it represents an astonishingly wide range of religious philosophies, from Catholocism to Protestantism. It was criticized, however, for it's ending, in which the cabin is set on fire and its slow, painful death is extensively described for 89 pages. "That was just unnecessary," said a critic at the time, "The description should have been way longer. I mean honestly, I just read a 500+ page book, I want a little violence and agony at the end to make it really worth my time."

A sequel, "Uncle Tom's Outhouse," was also published, and it is considered infinitely better.