This is a book remembered for its enormous historical and political significance rather than its literary merit. Although the characters may seem to the modern reader stereotyped, saccharine, melodramatic, Uncle Tom's Cabin is one of the greatest works of propaganda in literary history, one of the greatest arguments against slavery, and America's first bestseller. Upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe, Abraham Lincoln addressed her with the famous words: "so you're the little woman who made this great war!"