Harriet Beecher Stowe

"So you're the little woman who started this big war" Abraham Lincoln is said to have quipped when he met Harriet Beecher Stowe. Her 1852 novel <I>Uncle Tom’s Cabin</I> converted readers by the thousands to the anti-slavery movement and served notice that the days of slavery were numbered. Overnight Stowe became a celebrity but to defenders of slavery she was the devil in petticoats.<BR /><BR /> Most writing about Stowe treats her as a literary figure and social reformer while downplaying her Christian faith. But Nancy Koester's biography highlights Stowe’s faith as central to her life -- both her public fight against slavery and her own personal struggle through deep grief to find a gracious God. Having meticulously researched Stowe’s own writings both published and un-published Koester traces Stowe's faith pilgrimage from evangelical Calvinism through spiritualism to Anglican spirituality in a flowing compelling narrative.