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A. DREAM Caused by the perusal of Mrs. H. Beecher Stowe's popular work Uncle Tom's Cabin.
   
Complete Explanation:
An imaginative and biting satire on Harriet Beecher Stowe and her recently published antislavery novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Printed serially beginning in June 1851, the novel first appeared in book form in 1852.

The artist has concocted a chaotic, nightmarish vision, where armies of demons and other monsters battle in a barren, desert setting reminiscent of the infernal visions of Hieronymus Bosch and Jacques Callot. (Murrell points out, in fact, that the plate borrows its central motif--an enormous flying demon--from Callot's "Temptation of St. Anthony.&1)

In the center a leering black man dressed as a Quaker holds a flag "Women of England To The Rescue." To the left, near the mouth of a cave marked "Underground Railway," Mrs. Stowe is pulled and harassed by demons. She holds up a book that reads, "Uncle Tom's Cabin, I Love the Blacks." Another woman (or perhaps Mrs. Stowe again) rides in a parade of demons on the right. In the distance, several monsters feed copies of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" to a blazing fire.


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