Chapter 8: first trip to Europe, 1853.
- The Edmondsons. -- buying slaves to set them free. -- Jenny Lind. -- Professor Stowe is called to Andover. -- fitting up the new home. -- the “Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin.” -- Uncle Tom abroad. -- how it was published in England. -- preface to the European edition. -- the book in France. -- in Germany. -- a greeting from Charles Kingsley. -- preparing to visit Scotland. -- letter to Mrs. Follen.
Very soon after the publication of “Uncle Tom's Cabin” Mrs. Stowe visited her brother Henry in Brooklyn, and while there became intensely interested in the case of the Edmondsons, a slave family of Washington, D. C. Emily and Mary two of the daughters of Paul (a free colored man) and Milly (a slave) Edmondson, had, for trying to escape from bondage, been sold to a trader for the New Orleans market. While they were lying in jail in Alexandria awaiting the making up of a gang for the South, their heartbroken father determined to visit the North and try to beg from a freedom-loving people the money with which to purchase his daughters' liberty. The sum asked by the trader was $2,250, but its magnitude did not appall the brave old man, and he set forth upon his quest full of faith that in some way he would secure it.
Reaching New York, he went to the anti-slavery bureau and related his pitiful story. The sum demanded was such a large one and seemed so exorbitant
