Uncle Tom's Cabin first appeared as a 40-week serial in The National Era, an abolitionist periodical, starting with the June 5, 1851, issue. It was originally intended as a shorter narrative that would run for only a few weeks. Stowe expanded the story significantly, however, and it was instantly popular, such that protests were sent to the Era office when she missed an issue.[36] The final installment was released in the April 1, 1852, issue of Era. Stowe arranged for the story's copyright to be registered with the United States District Court for the District of Maine. She renewed her copyright in 1879 and the work entered the public domain on May 12, 1893.[37]
While the story was still being serialized, the publisher John P. Jewett contracted with Stowe to turn Uncle Tom's Cabin into a book.[38] Convinced the book would be popular, Jewett made the unusual decision (for the time) to have six full-page illustrations by Hammatt Billings engraved for the first printing.[39] Published in book form on March 20, 1852, the novel sold 3,000 copies on that day alone,[36] and soon sold out its complete print run.[40] In the first year after it was published, 300,000 copies of the book were sold in the United States.[41] Eight printing presses, running incessantly, could barely keep up with the demand.[42]
By mid-1853, sales of the book dramatically decreased[43] and Jewett went out of business during the Panic of 1857.[44] In June 1860, the right to publish Uncle Tom's Cabin passed to the Boston firm Ticknor and Fields,[45] which put the book back in print in November 1862. After that demand began to yet again increase.[46][47] Houghton Mifflin Company acquired the rights from Ticknor in 1878.[48] In 1879, a new edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin was released, repackaging the novel as an "American classic".[47] Through the 1880s until its copyright expired, the book served as a mainstay and reliable source of income for Houghton Mifflin.[43] By the end of the nineteenth century, the novel was widely available in a large number of editions[47] and in the United States it became the second best-selling book of that century after the Bible.[7]
Uncle Tom's Cabin sold equally well in Britain; the first London edition appeared in May 1852 and sold 200,000 copies.[49] In a few years, over 1.5 million copies of the book were in circulation in Britain, although most of these were infringing copies (a similar situation occurred in the United States).[50] By 1857, the novel had been translated into 20 languages.[51] Translator Lin Shu published the first Chinese translation in 1901, which was also the first American novel translated into that language.[52]
