Many people love the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. It might be the most beloved book in America. Is it a better book than The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? Are they comparable? If one is better than the other why is that?

Harriet Beecher Stowe who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin is not averse to preaching and trying to persuade the reader how heinous slavery is. And she is completely right about that.  But Mark Twain was different. Twain said in the introduction to his book that no one should look for a moral or message in his novel. He was just telling stories he said. Yet in Twain’s book, as Azar Nafisi pointed out, “He does not play on our sentiments, but stirs our hearts in ways we had never imagined possible.”

Twain shows us the hideous underbelly of slavery and racism all without preaching. In fact, Huck himself speaks about how wicked it is to help a slave to escape. His conscience burns when he does it. He believes he is committing a sin that will lead him directly to hell. Yet he does it anyway. He forsakes his up bringing, his “conscience”, and everything be believes, for the sake of his black slave friend.

Stowe wanted to change the world through her ideas. Twain elicited ideas when they could lead to good stories and he did that by offering an alternative reality. And at this Twain was a genius. This is what great art is all about. This is why in my opinion Huck Finn is perhaps the greatest novel ever written and why Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a good book.