It would be a mistake to judge this version of Uncle Tom's Cabin by its dust-jacket cover (left). The anonymous editor who cut Stowe's novel "for Use in Schools" left out about 80% of the text, including most of what the 20th century called its sentimentality, most of Stowe's emphasis on religion, and nearly all its minstrel-show and other racially stereotypical elements. Topsy, for example, never appears, and Chloe's mispronunciations of big words are silently corrected. The text adds very little [and when it does, to sum up deleted chapters, it puts the additions in brackets], but it leaves in most of George Harris' militancy, and the human hardships suffered by slaves.

The book is undated, but probably published sometime during the 1920s. Without more evidence, we can't say how this version was received, or even if it was ever used in any schools. The dust-jacket, probably added around 1930, indicates in two ways a new strategy by World Publishing to market and sell the book: first, the image foregrounds exactly the popular stereotype that the abridged text takes pains to avoid; second, the jacket's text identifies the volume as part of The Classic Series: "These old-time favorites do not need an introduction to young book-lovers. Their popularity has been proved by time. This low-priced edition makes them available to more readers than ever before." Other titles in the Series are Dickens' Christmas Books, Hiawatha and Black Beauty.