Music sheet cover
'Uncle Tom's Cabin'
Adelphi Theatre, London
Museum no. S.350-2012
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Uncle Tom's Cabin was an anti-slavery novel written by the American author Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1851. The book tells the story of the slave Uncle Tom, and the cruelties and harshness of his life. It was the first famous abolitionist work of fiction and became a stage play in 1852. The book stirred up great public feeling in the United States. Some even credited it with helping to start the American Civil War. Indeed, when Abraham Lincoln met Mrs Stowe in 1852, he said to her 'So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war'. The book was dramatised in 1852 and played simultaneously at theatres across America. This music sheet cover is from the dramatisation of the novel. After its American success, the play opened at London's Adelphi Theatre in 1852.