Stowe wrote this book to defend her novel against one of the most wide-spread complaints that pro-slavery critics lodged against it -- that as an account of slavery Uncle Tom's Cabin was wholly false, or at least wildly exaggerated. Thus The Key is organized around that defensive project, taking up her major characters one at a time, for example, to cite real life equivalents to them. At the same time, defending her novel led her to mount a more aggressive attack on slavery in the South than the novel itself had. In the novel she works hard to be sympathetic to white southerners as well as black slaves; here, her prose seems much angrier, both morally and rhetorically more contemptuous. One explanation for this sharper tone could be the novel's reception in the South, where no one seems to have appreciated her attempt to be fair. Stowe was probably unprepared for the South's shrill rejection of the book.

The Key is prickly, dense book, with none of the readability of Uncle Tom's Cabin. When it first came out, it was also a best seller, though it's likely many bought it without understanding its nature. It's also a kind of fiction. Although it claims to be about the sources Stowe consulted while writing the novel, for example, she read many of the works cited here only after the novel was published.

The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin; Presenting the Original Facts and Documents Upon Which the Story Is Founded, Together with Corroborative Statements Verifying the Truth of the Work. By Harriet Beecher Stowe. Boston: John P. Jewett and Company, 1854.

PART I [364KB] Chapter 1 -- Introductory Chapter 2 -- Mr. Haley Chapter 3 -- Mr. and Mrs. Shelby Chapter 4 -- George Harris Chapter 5 -- Eliza Chapter 6 -- Uncle Tom Chapter 7 -- Miss Ophelia Chapter 8 -- Marie St. Clare Chapter 9 -- St. Clare Chapter 10 -- Legree Chapter 11 -- Select Incidents of Lawful Trade Chapter 12 -- Topsy Chapter 13 -- The Quakers Chapter 14 -- The Spirit of St. Clare PART II [340KB] Chapter 1 -- Introductory Chapter 2 -- What Is Slavery? Chapter 3 -- Souther v. Commonwealth--The Ne Plus Ultra of Legal Humanity Chapter 4 -- Protective Statutes Chapter 5 -- Protective Statutes of South Carolina and Louisiana--The Iron Collar of Louisiana and North Carolina Chapter 6 -- Protective Acts with Regard to Food and Raiment Chapter 7 -- The Execution of Justice Chapter 8 -- The Good Old Times Chapter 9 -- Moderate Correction and Accidental Death Chapter 10 -- Principles Established--State v. Legree; A Case Not in the Books Chapter 11 -- The Triumph of Justice Over Law Chapter 12 -- A Comparison of the Roman Law of Slavery with the American Chapter 13 -- The Men Better Than Their Laws Chapter 14 -- The Hebrew Slave Law Compared with the American Slave Law Chapter 15 -- Slavery Is Despotism PART III [388KB] Chapter 1 -- Does Public Opinion Protect the Slave? Chapter 2 -- Public Opinion Formed by Education Chapter 3 -- Separation of Families Chapter 4 -- The Slave-Trade Chapter 5 -- Select Incidents of Lawful Trade, or Facts Stranger Than Fiction Chapter 6 -- [The Story of the Edmundsons] Chapter 7 -- [Emily Russell] Chapter 8 -- Kidnapping Chapter 9 -- Slaves as They Are, On Testimony of Owners Chapter 10 -- "Poor White Trash" PART IV [343KB] Chapter 1 -- The Influence of the American Church on Slavery Chapter 2 -- [The American Church and Slavery] Chapter 3 -- Martyrdom Chapter 4 -- Servitude in the Primitive Church Compared with American Slavery Chapter 5 -- [Christianity and Slavery] Chapter 6 -- [Christianity and Slavery] Chapter 7 -- [Christianity and Slavery] Chapter 8 -- [Christianity and Slavery] Chapter 9 -- Is the System of Religion Which Is Taught the Slave the Gospel? Chapter 10 -- What Is To Be Done?