Uncle Tom's Cabin Trivia
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50 free Uncle Tom's Cabin trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Uncle Tom's Cabin trivia quiz covers the 1852 anti-slavery novel that outsold every 19th-century American book except the Bible and, in the legend at least, started the Civil War. The easy questions cover the author, the character the book is named for, the villain whose name became a byword for cruelty and the escape across the frozen Ohio. From there the quiz walks through the plot and the people: the Shelbys, Eliza and George Harris, Little Eva and Augustine St. Clare, Miss Ophelia and Topsy, Cassy and Emmeline, and the Quakers who shelter the fugitives. The hard end covers the sources Stowe drew on, from Josiah Henson's narrative to American Slavery As It Is; the serial in The National Era; the print runs and the pirated British editions; the Anti-Tom novels of the South; the severed ear in the post; the Tom shows that ran for 75 years; the silent films and the MGM project the NAACP stopped; and the modern debate over the stereotypes the book helped spread. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries on the novel and its author before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our American literature and Civil War quizzes are natural next stops.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which famous author was Harriet Beecher Stowe's neighbour in Hartford's Nook Farm district?
Mark Twain
Mark Twain built his Hartford house near Stowe's in 1874, but money troubles forced him to close it and move his family to Europe in 1891.
Q 02Why could British publishers reprint Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852 without paying Stowe?
No international copyright law
No international copyright law protected American books abroad, so for her next novel, Dred, Stowe went to England in 1856 to arrange a British edition herself.
Q 03What is the subtitle of Uncle Tom's Cabin?
Life Among the Lowly
Life Among the Lowly was the subtitle; Stowe began the book after her sister-in-law wrote urging her to show what an accursed thing slavery is.
Q 04The passage of which law prompted Stowe to write Uncle Tom's Cabin?
The Fugitive Slave Act
The Fugitive Slave Act commanded ordinary citizens to help catch people fleeing slavery, and anyone who sheltered a fugitive faced up to a $1,000 fine and six months in jail.
Q 05In which abolitionist newspaper was Uncle Tom's Cabin first published in instalments?
The National Era
The National Era signed up a story Stowe expected to fill three or four instalments, but Uncle Tom's Cabin ran to more than 40 before it ended.
Q 06Where did Stowe say a vision of Uncle Tom's death first came to her?
At a church communion service
At a church communion service, Stowe said, a vision of Tom's death passed before her, and it inspired her to write his story.
Q 07Which book alone is often said to have outsold Uncle Tom's Cabin in 19th-century America?
The Bible
The Bible was the only book said to outsell it, and the novel's success brought Stowe financial security after years of struggling with poverty.
Q 08Who, in a likely apocryphal story, hailed Stowe as the little woman who started this great war?
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln met Stowe in 1862, but historians are undecided whether he said it, and her letter written hours later doesn't mention the line.
Q 09Whose slave narrative is believed to have partly inspired the character of Uncle Tom?
Josiah Henson
Josiah Henson's memoir was reissued in expanded editions after the novel's success tied him to Tom, one of them titled Uncle Tom's Story of His Life.
Q 10Which 1853 book did Stowe publish to answer charges that Uncle Tom's Cabin misrepresented slavery?
A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin
A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin argued that real slavery was worse than the novel, since a book showing it strictly as it was could not be read.
Q 11In which state is the farm where Uncle Tom's Cabin opens?
Kentucky
Kentucky was where a young Stowe visited a plantation that later served as the model for the farm where the novel opens.
Q 12Which slave trader buys Tom and young Harry at the start of Uncle Tom's Cabin?
Mr. Haley
Mr. Haley calls himself a humane man, yet after Eliza escapes with Harry he hires the slave hunters Tom Loker and Marks to track her down.
Q 13Which river does Eliza cross on the ice to escape her pursuers?
Ohio
The Ohio River crossing echoed a real 1838 escape across the ice by a woman carrying her baby, whom the abolitionist John Rankin helped.
Q 21What is the name of the young slave girl whom St. Clare buys for his cousin to educate?
Topsy
Topsy, asked who made her, says nobody did and she expects she grew, a line that inspired the phrase grow like Topsy for something that grows fast without a plan.
Q 22What does Eva give to each of the slaves before she dies?
A lock of her hair
A lock of her hair goes to each slave, as the dying Eva tells them to become Christians so that they can all see each other again in heaven.
Q 23How does Augustine St. Clare die before he can free Tom?
He is stabbed stopping a fight
He is stabbed stopping a fight between two drunken men in a café, and St. Clare, who never shared his daughter's faith, dies asking Tom to pray.
Q 14What does little Harry do to entertain the slave trader in Uncle Tom's Cabin?
Sings, dances and mimics
Harry sings, dances and mimics people so charmingly that the trader insists the boy be added to the deal, which drives Eliza to flee.
Q 15What is the name of Eliza's husband, who has already run away when she flees?
George Harris
George Harris shoots the slave hunter Tom Loker during the escape, yet Loker, nursed back to health by Quakers, gives up slave-catching.
Q 16To which country do Eliza and her husband first escape with their son?
Canada
Canada was only their first refuge: the family later moved to France and finally settled in Liberia, in West Africa.
Q 17How does Tom first meet the little girl Eva?
He rescues her from drowning
He rescues her from drowning when she falls from a riverboat, and her grateful father buys him from the slave trader.
Q 18How does Tom's wife, Aunt Chloe, earn money to buy him back after he is sold?
By baking for a confectioner
By baking for a confectioner, Aunt Chloe saved her wages toward Tom's price, but he died before he could be bought back and brought home.
Q 19In which city does Tom live with the St. Clare family?
New Orleans
New Orleans was Tom's home as the St. Clares' head coachman, but after his master's death the widow sold him at auction instead of freeing him.
Q 20Who is St. Clare's Northern cousin, opposed to slavery yet prejudiced against black people?
Ophelia
Ophelia comes from Vermont to run St. Clare's household, and at the end she takes the girl she was asked to educate home with her.
Q 24How do Sam and Andy help Eliza escape?
They delay the trader's pursuit
They delay the trader's pursuit, slipping something sharp under his saddle so his horse throws him, after their mistress hints they should not ride too fast.
Q 25In which state is Legree's plantation?
Louisiana
Louisiana is where Tom is taken to Legree's plantation, yet his cruel new master is no Southerner but a Northerner by birth.
Q 26What order from Legree does Tom refuse, earning the planter's hatred?
To whip a fellow slave
Tom refused to whip a fellow slave, so Legree beat him viciously and resolved to crush his faith, yet Tom kept comforting the others.
Q 27Which enslaved woman on Legree's plantation turns out to be Eliza's long-lost mother?
Cassy
Cassy drugs Legree's brandy and urges Tom to kill him with an axe as he sleeps, but Tom refuses to fight wickedness with wickedness.
Q 28Why does Legree finally order Tom killed?
He won't say where two runaways went
He won't say where two runaways went, so Legree has his overseers beat him to death, yet Tom forgives both men and they become Christians.
Q 29Who arrives to buy Tom's freedom just before he dies?
George Shelby
George Shelby comes too late to save Tom, then goes home, frees all his slaves and tells them to remember Tom whenever they see his cabin.
Q 30What did Tom's name eventually come to mean as an insult?
An excessively subservient person
An excessively subservient person is what the insult came to mean, yet Stowe wrote Tom as a pious but strong-willed hero who stands up for his beliefs.