BRUNSWICK — Harriet Beecher Stowe’s landmark novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” will be the subject of the next Bowdoin Book Lecture Series event Wednesday, Feb. 24, at Bowdoin College.

Leading Stowe expert Tess Chakkalakal, an assistant professor of Africana Studies and English at Bowdoin, will trace the history of the novel — and its title character — from its mid-19th-century origins in Brunswick to its present status, a racial epithet in African-American politics and culture.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was one of the greatest successes of American publishing history, as well as one of the most influential books to have ever appeared in the United States.

Stowe wrote the novel while living in Brunswick (1850-1851). At the time, her husband, Calvin, a Bowdoin graduate, was a theology professor at the College, and Harriet wrote some of the book in Calvin’s study in Appleton Hall on campus.

The 7 p.m. lecture in Nixon Lounge on the third-floor of Hawthorne-Longfellow Library is open to the public. Admission is free. For more information, call 725-3253.