Reading abolition : the critical reception of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Frederick Douglass Introduction: Interpreting and Reinterpreting Stowe and Douglass Uncle Toms Cabin in Its Own Time The Eclipse of Uncle Toms Cabin: The Early Twentieth Century Uncle Toms Cabin Revived: Race Gender Religion and Stowes Narrative Artistry Beyond Uncle Toms Cabin: The Reception of Stowes Later Fiction Nonfiction and Poetry The Critical Response to Douglasss Autobiographies Antislavery Eloquence: The Critical Response to Douglasss Antislavery Speeches and Journalism Epilogue: Critical Futures Stowe and Douglass Together and Separately Harriet Beecher Stowe and Frederick Douglass represent a crucial strand in nineteenth century American literature: the struggle for the abolition of slavery. Yet there has been no thoroughgoing discussion of the critical reception of these two giants of abolitionist literature. Reading Abolition narrates and explores the parallels between Stowes critical reception and Douglasss. The book begins with Stowes Uncle Toms Cabin considering its initial celebration as a work of genius and conscience its subsequent dismissal in the early twentieth century as anti Southern and in the mid twentieth century as racially stereotypical and finally its recent recovery as a classic of womens religious and political fiction. It also considers the reception of Stowes other less well known novels non fictional works and poetry and how engaging the full Stowe canon has changed the shape of Stowe studies. The second half of the study deals with the reception of Douglass both as a writer of three autobiographies that helped to define the contours of African American autobiography for later writers and critics and as an extraordinarily eloquent and influential orator and journalist. Reading Abolition shows that Stowes and Douglasss critical destinies have long been intertwined with questions about race gender nationalism religion and the nature of literary and rhetorical genius playing crucial roles in critical considerations of both figures..