Harriet Beecher Stowe was an author and a abolitionist. Her most noted novel was “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” No other novel had as much impact on America as this novel.It was the first novel to sell one million copies. It was a story of Americans under slavery. It sold millions of copies. Not only did it have a great impact in America but England as well. It galvanized anti-slavery forces in the American North while at the same time provoking anger throughout the South. The passage of the “Fugitive Slave Law” infuriated Harriet as well as every all others who were opposed to slavery. What this act did was make every American a "deputy" in the return of any run-away slave. In response to this law Stowe wrote to Gamaliel Bailey the editor of anti-slave journal the "National Era" that she planned to write a book about the problem of slavery. She said "I feel now that the time is come when even a woman or a child who can speak a word for freedom and humanity is bound to speak…I hope every woman who can write will not be silent.” In June 1851 she published “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” In less than a year the novel sold an unprecedented three hundred thousand copies. The book depicted the devastating wrongs of slavery. The book added force to anti-slavery and anger in the South. In the first year of its publication the name of one of the main characters was on the tongues of thousands of people in the North. In Boston alone over 300 babies were named Eva. Little Eva was a child victim of slavery in the book. Following the start of the Civil War Stowe was summoned to Washington, D.C. and met President Abraham Lincoln on November 25, 1862. Legend states that when Lincoln met her he greeted her by saying, “So you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.” In truth no one knows what was said at their meeting however, said or not, it was one of the biggest factors in the starting of the war. Stowe’s daughter, who was at the White House stated “it was a very droll time that we had at the White house I assure you…I will only say not that it was all very funny---and we were ready to explode with laughter all the while.” In a letter to her husband Stowe writing was equally vague, “ I had a real funny interview with the President. Not only did the book impact the start of the war, it was a thorn in the side of the South throughout the conflict. The impact in England was a blight culturally and economically. England was heavily depended on the South for cotton in their textile business. However cotton was cut off from them by the Union navy imposing a blockade on all shipping leaving the South. There was pressure from the business community to use the British navy to break the blockade however, they dared not do so because the vast majority of English citizens were against the South. Some feared that if the British navy helped to break the blockade, England would have been on the verge of having a revolution of their own. FURTHER READING Uncle Tom’s Cabin<1852> A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1853)