William Gilmore Simms was a poet, novelist, politician and historian from the American South. His writings achieved great prominence during the 19th century, with Edgar Allan Poe pronouncing him the best novelist America had ever produced. He is still known among literary scholars as a major force in antebellum Southern literature. He is also remembered for his strong support of slavery and for his opposition to Uncle Tom's Cabin, in response to which he wrote reviews and the pro-slavery novel The Sword and the Distaff (1854). During his literary career he served as editor of several journals and newspapers and he also served in the South Carolina House of Representatives.
William Gilmore Simms, circa 1860
William Gilmore Simms as he appears at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.
Simms's bust, unveiled in 1879, in The Battery in Charleston, South Carolina
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U.S., and is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the [American] Civil War".
Title page for Volume I of the first edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)
An engraving of Harriet Beecher Stowe from 1872, based on an oil painting by Alonzo Chappel
First appearance of Uncle Tom's Cabin as serialized in The National Era (June 5, 1851)
Full-page illustration by Hammatt Billings for the first edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). Eliza tells Uncle Tom that he has been sold and she is running away to save her child.