ABSTRACT
The dual status of Uncle Tom’s Cabin as a classic and as a popular work helps account for the mixed messages conveyed in the paratext of the novel. The initial debate around the novel was reflected in the authorial paratext and focused on the veracity of its representation. After the Civil War, however, authors of prefaces and introductions began to analyze the novel in terms of its literary value. The hesitations and waverings of these late nineteenth-century elements of paratext laid the groundwork for subsequent fluctuations. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was introduced as a classic, but a classic with a difference. Compared to major literary works, Stowe’s novel appeared as a flawed masterpiece. Its very popularity raised a challenge. In the nineteenth century, the success of the work frequently represented the ultimate answer to the problem of literary value: the people had spoken in favor of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. A century later, the popularity of the novel had clearly become a liability. Yet it still puzzled preface writers who confessed to an inability to judge an object which refused to fit identifiable categories. The debate continues in the most recent introductions to new editions of the work. Absence of consensus, one of the distinctive features of the novel and its paratext, has now become a sales argument.
