Editing Uncle Tom's Cabin (section)

==Publication==
[[File:Uncle Tom's Cabin 1st Publication, National Era, 5 Jun 1851.jpg|thumb|First appearance of ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' as serialized in ''[[The National Era]]'' (June 5, 1851)]]
''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' first appeared as a 40-week serial in ''[[The National Era]]'', an abolitionist periodical, starting with the June 5, 1851, issue. It was originally intended as a shorter narrative that would run for only a few weeks. Stowe expanded the story significantly, however, and it was instantly popular, such that protests were sent to the ''Era'' office when she missed an issue.{{sfn|Applegate|2006|p=[https://archive.org/details/mostfamousmanina00debb/page/261 261]}} The final installment was released in the April 1, 1852, issue of ''Era''. Stowe arranged for the story's copyright to be registered with the [[United States District Court for the District of Maine]]. She renewed her copyright in 1879 and the work entered the public domain on May 12, 1893.{{sfn|Winship|2010|pp=86–87}}

While the story was still being serialized, the publisher [[John P. Jewett]] contracted with Stowe to turn ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' into a book.{{sfn|Winship|1999|p= 313}} Convinced the book would be popular, Jewett made the unusual decision (for the time) to have six full-page illustrations by [[Hammatt Billings]] engraved for the first printing.<ref name=Illustrations>{{cite web |url=http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/uncletom/illustra/52illf.html |title= First Edition Illustrations |work= Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture, a Multi-Media Archive |publisher= Department of English, University of Virginia |access-date= February 21, 2022}}</ref> Published in book form on March 20, 1852, the novel sold 3,000&nbsp;copies on that day alone,{{sfn|Applegate|2006|p=[https://archive.org/details/mostfamousmanina00debb/page/261 261]}} and soon sold out its complete print run.{{sfn|Winship|1999|p= 314}} In the first year after it was published, 300,000&nbsp;copies of the book were sold in the United States.<ref>{{cite news |first=Geoffrey |last=Wheatcroft |title=The Cousins' War: review of Amanda Foreman, 'A World on Fire' |work=[[The New York Times]] Book Review |date=July 3, 2011 |page= 1}}</ref> Eight printing presses, running incessantly, could barely keep up with the demand.{{sfn|Nudelman|2004|p=19}}

By mid-1853, sales of the book dramatically decreased{{sfn|Winship|2010|p=86}} and Jewett went out of business during the [[Panic of 1857]].{{sfn|Winship|1999|p= 323}} In June 1860, the right to publish ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' passed to the Boston firm [[Ticknor and Fields]],{{sfn|Winship|1999|p= 324}} which put the book back in print in November 1862. After that demand began to yet again increase.{{sfn|Winship|1999|pp= 324–325}}<ref name="PublicationHistory">{{cite web |url=http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/interpret/exhibits/winship/winship.html |title= Uncle Tom's Cabin: History of the Book in the 19th-Century United States |first= Michael |last=Winship|work= Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture, a Multi-Media Archive |publisher= Department of English, University of Virginia |access-date= February 21, 2022 |date= 2007}} Derived from a presentation at the June 2007 Uncle Tom's Cabin in the Web of Culture conference, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and presented by the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center (Hartford, CT) and the Uncle Tom's Cabin & American Culture Project at the University of Virginia.</ref> [[Houghton Mifflin Company]] acquired the rights from Ticknor in 1878.{{sfn|Winship|2010|p=85}} In 1879, a new edition of ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' was released, repackaging the novel as an "American classic".<ref name="PublicationHistory"/> Through the 1880s until its copyright expired, the book served as a mainstay and reliable source of income for Houghton Mifflin.{{sfn|Winship|2010|p=86}} By the end of the nineteenth century, the novel was widely available in a large number of editions<ref name="PublicationHistory"/> and in the United States it became the second best-selling book of that century after the Bible.{{sfn|DiMaggio|2014|p= 15}}

''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' sold equally well in Britain; the first London edition appeared in May 1852 and sold 200,000&nbsp;copies.<ref name=pbs-4p2958/> In a few years, over 1.5&nbsp;million copies of the book were in circulation in Britain, although most of these were [[Copyright infringement|infringing]] copies (a similar situation occurred in the United States).{{sfn|Holohan|2011|pp= 27–28}} By 1857, the novel had been translated into 20 languages.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://bindings.lib.ua.edu/gallery/uncletom.html |title=Uncle Tom's Cabin: A 19th-Century Bestseller |publisher=The University of Alabama |access-date=June 14, 2012}}</ref> Translator [[Lin Shu]] published the first Chinese translation in 1901, making it the first American novel translated into that language.{{sfn|Jie|1993|p=522}}