Autographed Uncle Tom's Cabin Found

Found in a coal cellar.

From a story in the Scotsman...

The copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, signed by the author, was authenticated after it was found in a vast cellar full of donations. The book, with a price tag of about £1,500, is expected to be one of the biggest draw at this year’s event in Edinburgh.

“This came up from the coal cellars that we keep the stuff in all year, and it came out of a box yesterday. We have got a true attribution. It’s a book that changed history,” said the American book expert Reid Zulager, who flies in annually to sort rare items from tens of thousands of books on offer at the Christian Aid book sale.

The book by the abolitionist writer, a Connecticut teacher, set out to depict the true nature of slavery in human terms. Its author was once greeted by US president Abraham Lincoln, it is claimed, as “the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war”.