# A Plausible Man: The True Story of the Escaped Slave Who Inspired Uncle Tom's Cabin - Hardcover

by **Susanna Ashton** (Author)

**The remarkable story of the man behind the book that helped spark the Civil War, in a stunning historical detective story**

In December of 1850, a faculty wife in Brunswick, Maine, named Harriet Beecher Stowe hid a fugitive slave in her house. While John Andrew Jackson stayed for only one night, he made a lasting impression: drawing from this experience, Stowe began to write _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, one of the most influential books in American history and the novel that helped inspire the overthrow of slavery in the United States.

_A Plausible Man_ unfolds as a historical detective story, as Susanna Ashton combs obscure records for evidence of Jackson's remarkable flight from slavery to freedom, his quest to liberate his enslaved family, and his emergence as an international advocate for abolition. This fresh and original work takes us through the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the restoration of white supremacy--where we last glimpse Jackson losing his freedom again on a Southern chain gang.

In the spirit of Tiya Miles's prizewinning _All That She Carried_ and Erica Armstrong Dunbar's _Never Caught_, Susanna Ashton breathes life into a striving and nuanced American character, one unmistakably rooted in the vast sweep of nineteenth-century America.

### Author Biography

**Susanna Ashton** is professor of English at Clemson University. An expert on slavery and freedom narratives, she was a Du Bois fellow at Harvard's Hutchins Center, a fellow with Yale's Gilder Lehrman Center, and a Fulbright scholar. The author of _Collaborators in Literary America, 1870-1920_, she lives in Clemson, South Carolina.

**Number of Pages:** 368

**Dimensions:** 1.2 x 9.1 x 6.1 IN

**Publication Date:** August 06, 2024

## Details

- **Price:** 28.99 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 28.99 USD | In stock |

## Images

- A Plausible Man: The True Story of the Escaped Slave Who Inspired Uncle Tom's Cabin - Hardcover

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