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LOT #45184 |

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Harriet Beecher Stowe. Autograph manuscript early draft ("first draught") of a portion of Chapter 1 of Uncle Tom's Ca...

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"If anybody had ever said to me that I should sell Tom down south to one of those rascally traders, I should have said 'Is my servant a dog to do this thing?'"

Harriet Beecher Stowe. Autograph manuscript early draft ("first draught") of a portion of Chapter 1 of Uncle Tom's Cabin. [Brunswick, ME, February-April 1851].

2 pages, folio (10 ¾ x 6 7/8 inches; 274 x 175 mm.). Written in dark brown ink on recto and verso of a single sheet of ruled paper. With stenciled donation statement on a slip of plain wove paper mounted at head of recto of leaf (covering five lines of holograph text).

AN EXCEPTIONALLY RARE MANUSCRIPT LEAF FROM THE FIRST CHAPTER OF 'UNCLE TOM'S CABIN,' ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL WORKS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

The present leaf was previously unrecorded, and it is the only early draft leaf from Chapter One now in private hands. It becomes the tenth surviving fragment of Stowe's landmark work, adding to the previous nine fragments known to scholars (only two others in private hands).

Three other leaves of the early draft of chapter 1 are known to be extant. In The Building of Uncle Tom's Cabin (1977) scholar E. Bruce Kirkham designated two of them "A" and "B." The third known leaf from the chapter, not known to Kirkham, is in the Collection of Mary C. Schlosser. The text of this newly rediscovered leaf is immediately antecedent to the leaf in Schlosser's collection, according to the transcription reported on the Uncle Tom's Cabin & American Culture site at the University of Virginia.

The present manuscript draft leaf is apparently among those which remained in Stowe's possession, for a quarter-century later she would contact publisher James R. Osgood about plans for what became the New Edition (1879). On March 10, 1878, she inquired: "I have the autograph of one of the earlier chapters would it be a good plan to introduce that a specimen of that?" Although the plan to reproduce a manuscript leaf in facsimile was not realized for Houghton, Osgood, and Co.'s New Edition, a leaf from chapter 4, which describes the "cabin of Uncle Tom," is reproduced in her son Charles Edward Stowe's family biography, Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe: compiled from her letters and journals (1889). What became of the original leaf for the heliotype facsimile is unknown (see leaf opposite p. 160). Kirkham designated the Life facsimile image Leaf C in Building (p. 214-15). In short, the present leaf is among the "earlier chapters" that remained in Stowe's possession, likely until passed to her son and biographer Charles E. Stowe. He is the named presenter in the stencil presentation slip to the Bridgewater, MA, Town Library, although how many leaves remained in his possession, how many were distributed to other family members, and what became of other draft fragments (if any still extant) are details unknown to scholars.

This manuscript comprises 44 lines visible (plus 5 lines below presentation slip) in Stowe's hand, comprising an early draft of the first chapter of the novel, with several minor corrections to dialect style and wording. A large doubled cross marks the entire leaf as canceled, presumably to keep it separate from the latest draft, likely the one that served as the serial setting copy. Kirkham's Leaf A at NYPL, labeled "first draught," is similarly canceled. In this chapter, we are introduced to the slave owner from Kentucky, Arthur Shelby, who is forced by debt to sell two of his slaves, Uncle Tom, the leading hand on his place, and Harry, the son of his wife's maid Eliza. Although he and his wife are portrayed as relatively kind masters, excess spending on plantation luxuries and financial mismanagement leads him to sell them to Mr. Haley to answer a promissory note that has come due. His dialogue with Haley drives the plot, as Eliza overhears the plan and flees with Harry. Although Uncle Tom has the opportunity to escape as well, he declines it in the belief that helping to retire Shelby's debt offers better security to his wife and children. After Shelby agrees to sell Tom, the novel's protagonist begins his southward journey with Haley.

The text passages on the present leaf continue from shortly after the text of Kirkham's Leaf B (University of Virginia), with approximately one intervening leaf that is no longer extant, and concern Shelby's negotiation with Haley. The former struggles with the consequences of his predicament. The visible text begins below the mounted slip (in italics here) on recto: "[Mr Shelby replied to this expose only by a shrug of his shoulders. Both had sat silently picking their nuts a few minutes 'I'll think the matter over, and talk with my wife,' said Mr. Shelby. 'Meantime, Haley, if you want] the matter carried on in the quiet way you speak of you'd best not let your business in this neighbourhood be known. It'l get out among my boys, & it will not be a particularly quiet business getting away any of my hands if they know it, I'll warrant you."

After Haley departs, Shelby expresses his inner anger at the slave-trader (and himself for the dilemma he created): "I'd like to have been able to kick the fellow down the steps said he to himself as he saw the door fairly closed 'with his impudent assurance, but he knows how much he has me at advantage! If any body had ever said to me that I should sell Tom down south to one of these rascally traders, I should have said Is my servant a dog to do this thing & now it must come for aught I see. And Elisé's child too! I know that I shall have some fuss with wife about that. So much for mining[?] [or, messing?] in debt-heigho the fellow knows his advantage & means to push it."

The manuscript text concludes with the narrator's opening remark on Kentucky's as the "mildest form of the system of slavery," the first of Stowe's direct addresses to her readers, her gloss upon the evils of slavery that she has just dramatized.

Although an earlier draft, the text of this leaf corresponds closely both to the June 5, 1851, installment of Uncle Tom's Cabin in the National Era, near the top of column c, and to volume 1, pages 22-23, in publisher John P. Jewett's first American edition, released March 20, 1852. When writing out the final manuscript draft, Stowe made several notable alterations, between this earlier and the published texts. In this manuscript draft, the trader Haley is in a "deuce of a hurry," in the published texts a "devil of a hurry." In the present draft, Shelby refers to "getting any of my hands away," in the published texts to "getting away any of my fellows." In this draft, her narrator compares Kentucky agriculture to "the sugar & cotton business" in the Southern regions, but in the published texts does not name specific crops. According to this draft, the socially elevated Kentucky planter class balances the pursuit of wealth against the "interest & welfare of" the "helpless and unprotected" but only the "interests" of the same in the published texts. Notably, in the published forms, Shelby expects his wife to make "some fuss" not only about the sale of Eliza's child but "about Tom too." Perhaps the early draft original of Mr. Shelby expected his wife only to have an interest in the household servants-not field laborers. Among consequences of Stowe's manuscript revisions is to alter subtly the portrait not only of the relationship between Shelby the gentleman planter and his wife but how he interacts with Haley the trader. In this early manuscript draft, Shelby exhibits greater haughtiness, for he stands on his higher social status to put off the decision to which his debt appears to compel him, by asking the hurried trader Haley to return in three days.

Condition: Paper stock brittle; light even toning to sheet; creased at folds, with slight splitting or separations; stenciled donation statement on slip of plain wove paper inadvertently mounted at head of recto side (and covering the first five lines of the manuscript text).

Provenance: Charles Edward Stowe; Bridgewater Town Library, MA (stenciled donation statement on a slip mounted at the head of the first leaf: "A fragment of the original MSS of Uncle Tom's Cabin or Life Among the Lowly by Harriet Beecher Stowe / Presented to the Bridgewater Town Library by her Son / Charles Edward Stowe Nov. 22 1906." Acquired in the 1970s by the late owner; by descent to present consignor.

Heritage Auctions gratefully acknowledges Prof. Wesley Raabe, Associate Professor of English at Kent State University and a leading expert in the textual history of Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, for his valuable research assistance in establishing the proper contextual significance and chronological placement of the present manuscript leaf among the surviving draft leaves of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Prof. Raabe is volume editor for Uncle Tom's Cabin and a series editor for Collected Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe, from Oxford University Press.