their reputations.

Among the novels relating to life in the Southern States, "Uncle Tom's
Cabin" is the most prominent. The circulation and fame of this book
have been the most remarkable phenomenon in the annals of literature.
Within a year, more than two hundred thousand copies were sold in the
United States, and fully a million in England. Thirteen different
translations were issued in Germany, four in France, and two in Russia;
the Magyar language boasted three separate versions; the Wallachian,
two; the Welsh, two; and the Dutch, two; while the Armenian, Arabic,
Romaic, and all the European languages had at least one version. The
book was dramatized in not less than twenty different forms, and was
acted all over Europe. In France, and still more in England, all other
books and all other subjects became, for the time, secondary to "Uncle
Tom's Cabin." This extraordinary popularity was chiefly due to the
importance and novelty of the subject treated. Mrs. Stowe imparted a
considerable narrative interest to her work, and gave to her characters
a very life-like effect. Her pathetic and humorous scenes are natural
and well arranged. The peculiarities of negro life and habits of
thought are placed before the reader with genuine sympathy and truth.
Uncle Tom and Topsy are fine and original creations. But taken simply
as a novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is not more remarkable than a hundred
others, and cannot compete with such works as "Tom Jones," "Adam Bede,"
or "David Copperfield." Mrs. Stowe's extraordinary success was fully
deserved, but it resulted less from the literary excellence of her
work, than from the fact that when one great subject rose pre-eminent
in the public mind, she was able to embody it in a popular and easily
comprehended form. Gilmore Simms and John P. Kennedy have contributed
largely to the novel of Southern life. Mr. G.W. Cable is now studying
Louisiana characters, and Judge Tourgee the general condition of the