Questions of Reception: Uncle Tom's Cabin in Contrast to The Lamplighter Anonymous College

It is the middle of the nineteenth century, and, seemingly by coincidence, two novels, both written by women, are released in close proximity to one another, and each manages to grip tight the American public, and each in their own way becomes extremely popular, revered, and beloved, almost overnight. In the weeks that follow, thousands of copies of each book are sold, as printing presses run day and night just to keep up with the demand. Over the course of mere weeks, hundreds raise their voices, all praising or condemning the works of these two female writers. While a variety of emotions and opinions can be seen in the reviews of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and The Lamplighter by Maria Cummins, there is an undeniable public preference to the story and the feel good emotions that reside within The Lamplighter, while Stowe’s tale of slavery incites far more conflict and negative opinion. These trends in reviews can be seen not only when the reviews discuss plot, but in the views of the characters, the messages and connotations within the stories, and in how the authors themselves are seen. While history proved that Uncle Tom’s Cabin is the novel that stood the test of time and lived on, at the time these pieces...