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settled in its
Andover home.
The plans for the winter's literary work were, however, altered by force of circumstances.
Instead of proceeding quietly and happily with her charming
Maine story,
Mrs. Stowe found it necessary to take notice in some manner of the cruel and incessant attacks made upon her as the author of
Uncle Tom's Cabin, and to fortify herself against them by a published statement of incontrovertible facts.
It was claimed on all sides that she had in her famous book made such ignorant or malicious misrepresentations that it was nothing short of a tissue of falsehoods, and to refute this she was compelled to write a “Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin,” in which should appear the sources from which she had obtained her knowledge.
Late in the winter
Mrs. Stowe wrote:--
I am now very much driven.
I am preparing a Key to unlock Uncle Tom's Cabin.
It will contain all the original facts, anecdotes, and documents on which the story is founded, with some very interesting and affecting stories parallel to those told of Uncle Tom.
Now I want you to write for me just what you heard that slave-buyer say, exactly as he said it, that people may compare it with what I have written.
My Key will be stronger than the Cabin.
In regard to this “Key” Mrs. Stowe also wrote to the Duchess of Sutherland upon hearing that she had headed an address from the women of England to those of America:--
It is made up of the facts, the documents, the things which my own eyes have looked upon and my hands have handled, that attest this awful indictment
