"uncle tom's cabin" began in a series in an anti-slavery newspaper, "the national era". "the national era" had also printed other works stowe had written. because everybody liked the story so much, john p. jewett of boston asked stowe to turn the serial into a book. stowe was not sure if people would like to read the story as a book. however, she finally agreed. john jewett, sure that the book would be popular, asked hammatt billings to engrave six pictures for the book. in march 20, 1852, the finished book came out. by june it was selling ten thousand copies a week. by october american sales alone were 150 thousand copies. in the first year it was published, 300,000 copies of the book were sold, and it was translated into many important languages.